Description
Spore feeding is considered one of the earliest forms of herbivory in insects, and it has been proposed that pollination may have indirectly evolved from this ancestral trait. In extant insects, spore feeding primarily involves consuming the spores of ferns, a behavior known as fern-spore feeding (FSF). The most representative clade exhibiting FSF is the subfamily Cuprininae (Stathmopodidae), whose larvae feed exclusively on fern spores. However, detailed knowledge of the feeding habits and host associations within Cuprininae remains limited. In this study, we applied a metabarcoding approach to identify the larvae of FSF insects collected from our study site in subtropical forest and to reconstruct the associations between Cuprininae species and their respective fern hosts. By establishing more robust species-host links, our findings provide critical insights into the ecological specialization and evolutionary history of spore-feeding insects. This work also contributes to understanding how early herbivorous traits may have shaped subsequent insect-plant interactions.
Data Records
The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 344 records.
This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.
Versions
The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.
How to cite
Researchers should cite this work as follows:
Wang Y, Kuo L (2025). Fern spore feeding records of Cuprininae moth (Stathmopodidae) in Tengping, Taiwan. Version 1.0. Institute of Molecular & Cellular Biology, National Tsing Hua University. Occurrence dataset. https://ipt.taibif.tw/resource?r=mothhostassociations&v=1.0
Rights
Researchers should respect the following rights statement:
The publisher and rights holder of this work is Institute of Molecular & Cellular Biology, National Tsing Hua University. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) License.
GBIF Registration
This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: 2e44a422-303c-4b66-a42a-632d22aa38bb. Institute of Molecular & Cellular Biology, National Tsing Hua University publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by Taiwan Biodiversity Information Facility.
Keywords
Occurrence; Moth; Cuprininae; Stathmopodidae; Fern; Spore-feeding
Contacts
- Originator ●
- Point Of Contact
- Metadata Provider ●
- User
Geographic Coverage
Tengping Trail, Emei Township, Hsinchu County
| Bounding Coordinates | South West [24.63, 121.006], North East [24.659, 121.043] |
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Sampling Methods
A two-year monthly field sampling in Tengping trail
| Study Extent | A two-year monthly field sampling in Tengping trail |
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Method step description:
- Monthly field sampling in Tengping trail and metabarcoding
Additional Metadata
| Alternative Identifiers | https://ipt.taibif.tw/resource?r=mothhostassociations |
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