A long-term goal in evolutionary ecology is to explain the incredible diversity of insect herbivores and patterns of host plant use in speciose groups like tropical Lepidoptera. Here, we used standardized food-web data, multigene phylogenies of both trophic levels and plant chemistry data to model interactions between Lepidoptera larvae (caterpillars) from two lineages (Geometridae and Pyraloidea) and plants in a species-rich lowland rainforest in New Guinea. Model parameters were used to make and test blind predictions for two hectares of an exhaustively sampled forest. For pyraloids, we relied on phylogeny alone and predicted 54% of species-level interactions, translating to 79% of all trophic links for individual insects, by sampling insects from only 15% of local woody plant diversity. The phylogenetic distribution of host-plant associations in polyphagous geometrids was less conserved, reducing accuracy. In a truly quantitative food web, only 40% of pair-wise interactions were described correctly in geometrids. Polyphenol oxidative activity (but not protein precipitation capacity) was important for understanding the occurrence of geometrids (but not pyraloids) across their hosts. When both foliar chemistry and plant phylogeny were included, we predicted geometrid-plant occurrence with 89% concordance. Such models help to test macroevolutionary hypotheses at the community level.

Bell Museum of Natural History and Department of Plant and Microbial Biology University of Minnesota 1479 Gortner Avenue Saint Paul MN 55108 1095 USA

Biology Centre The Czech Academy of Sciences Branisovska 31 37005 Ceske Budejovice Czech Republic

Department of Chemistry University of Turku Vatselankatu 2 FI 20500 Turku Finland

Department of Life Sciences The Natural History Museum Cromwell Road London SW7 5BD UK

Faculty of Science University of South Bohemia in Ceske Budejovice Branisovska 1760 37005 Ceske Budejovice Czech Republic

National Museum of Natural History Smithsonian Institution Box 37012 Washington DC 20013 7012 USA

New Guinea Binatang Research Center PO Box 604 Madang Madang Papua New Guinea

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Apartado 0843 03092 Panama City Republic of Panama

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What Goes in Must Come Out? The Metabolic Profile of Plants and Caterpillars, Frass, And Adults of Asota (Erebidae: Aganainae) Feeding on Ficus (Moraceae) in New Guinea

Quantitative assessment of plant-arthropod interactions in forest canopies: A plot-based approach

Variably hungry caterpillars: predictive models and foliar chemistry suggest how to eat a rainforest