PubMed · 2026-01-12
Insects eating leaves aboveground don't just damage plants — they reshape the soil community beneath them, changing how the next generation of plants grows. This study calls for treating plants, insects, and soil microbes as one interconnected system rather than studying them in isolation.
Aboveground insect herbivory significantly alters plant-soil feedback mechanisms, affecting not just the damaged plant but the surrounding soil microbial community structure.
Most prior research studied only one direction of this relationship (soil microbes affecting leaf-eating insects), while the reverse — how leaf-eating insects reshape soil — has been largely overlooked.
Experiments studying single factors in isolation consistently fail to predict real-world outcomes, highlighting the need for community-level, multi-factor research approaches.