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In the earliest known antagonistic relationships with plants, insects consume plant pollen and spores. [6] Since 300 million years ago, insects have been known to consume nectar and pollinate flowers. In the Mesozoic, between 200 and 150 million years ago, insects' feeding patterns started to diversify. [7]
Such insects often advertise their toxicity using warning colors. [5] This successful evolutionary pattern has also been utilized by mimics. Over time, this has led to complex groups of coevolved species. Conversely, some interactions between plants and insects, like pollination, are beneficial to both organisms.
A study of three separate networks, all of which showed modularity, revealed that hub species were always plants and not the insect pollinators. [8] Previous work has found that networks will become nested at a smaller size (number of species) than that where networks frequently become modular. [7]
Insects often compete with each other for resources such as food, territory, and mates. Competition can occur within species (intraspecific) or between species (interspecific). This competition can lead to adaptations and niche differentiation, where species evolve to occupy different ecological niches to minimize competition.
Between 950,000–1,000,000 of all described animal species are considered insects, so over 50% of all described eukaryotes (1.8 million species) are insects (see illustration). With only 950,000 known non-insects, if the actual total number of insects is 5.5 million, they may represent over 80% of the total, and with only about 20,000 new ...
Insect-plant interactions have been important in defining models of coevolution and cospeciation, referring to whether plant speciation drives insect speciation and vice versa, though most herbivorous insects probably evolved long after the plants on which they feed. [citation needed]
In temperate regions, a phase of sexual reproduction occurs in the autumn, with the insects often overwintering as eggs. The life cycle of some species involves an alternation between two species of host plants, for example between an annual crop and a woody plant. Some species feed on only one type of plant, while others are generalists ...
Carrion flowers attract flies and other carrion-feeding insects by their smell. [12] Orbea variegata illustrated.. Carrion flowers, including the enormous Amorphophallus titanum, [11] mimic the scent and appearance of rotting flesh to attract necrophagous (carrion-feeding) insects like flesh flies (Sarcophagidae), blowflies (Calliphoridae), house flies and some beetles (e.g., Dermestidae and ...