Education

Ph.D. University of Chicago
M.S. University of Wisconsin
B.A. California State University

Research Interests

Plant-insect associations in the fossil record (see: Damage Type Field Guide)
Insect paleoecology and the evolution of terrestrial ecosystems
Early Devonian ecosystems and the origin of arthropod terrestriality

The fundamental question that encompasses my research is the following: How is it that insects and vascular plants have come to dominate virtually all land and freshwater environments? Specifically, how is this 420-million-year-old pattern of terrestrial monopolization reflected in the historical record of plants, insects, and their associations? The answer involves a fossil record that provides valuable information for long-term trends regarding feeding (trophic) structure in fossil assemblages, associational trends among trophically linked plant and insect lineages, the development of component communities (that is, a plant host and all of its dependent species), and ultimately ecosystem evolution. However, this line of investigation is quite new and is rooted in two different, albeit complementary, approaches. The first is examination of the evolutionary biology among extant plants and their associates, either at the ecological level of examining trophic interactions, or at the evolutionary level of documenting phylogenetic patterns in associated lineages of plant and insect species. Such actualistic studies have made considerable strides in revealing long-term evolutionary processes and often have generated insights into processes inherent in true coevolution.

Alternatively, one can assess the fossil record directly and document what has happened among co-occurring plants and insects, focusing on their associations. In this regard, I view the geochronologic history of these two hyperdiverse groups as consisting of three distinctive fossil records: the body-fossil record of plants, the body-fossil of insects, and importantly, the trace-fossil record of their associations. This latter archive of associations is based on five types of fossil evidence, depending on the type of preservation and whether the plant or insect component is better represented. They are, stressing first the plant evidence: (1) features of plant reproductive biology indicating insect association, (2) insect-mediated plant damage, (3) insect gut contents that contain plant material, (4) dispersed insect coprolites, and (5) the plant-related structure of insect mouthparts and ovipositors. All five elements constitute a matrix that in any one deposit may be variously present or absent, and whose assembly is essential for the reconstruction and interpretation of plant-insect associations within a bygone community. It should be noted that all three fossil records are important, but it is the associational record that provides the ecological dimension for understanding not only the spectrum from looser detritivorous to more intricate herbivorous relationships, but also the evolution of trophic webs at the local community and broader ecosystem levels.

My research has taken four major directions, although other, related projects are being pursued as well now and into the future.

Document the expansion of herbivory during the Late Carboniferous to Middle Permian of Euramerica. In addition to my work with Tom Phillips of the University of Illinois on coal-swamp forests, I am working currently at two spatiotemporal scales to address the question of how herbivory apparently spread out of equatorial Carboniferous wetland floras and into more mesic and xeric clastic environments along the equator of the paleocontinent Euramerica. The first study is an examination of herbivore damage type and extent, particularly on the pinnules of the common medullosan seed-fern, Macroneuropteris scheuchzeri, across several environments across Euramerica. I have established a reference collection of foliar material from Mazon Creek, Illinois, where four distinctive damage types occur, as well as other floras across Late Paleozoic time and space in Euramerica. I expect that distinctive Late Paleozoic patterns of insect-mediated damage will reveal the timing, scope, and habitat preferences of insect herbivory. The second approach is spatiotemporally coarser grained, and involves continued qualitative and quantitative examination of site-specific floras for insect damage on all types of vascular plant hosts. Values indicating the intensity and host-specificity of herbivores for these floras can be compared for a 35 million year period during the Early Permian in sites from north-central Texas (Beck & Labandeira, 1998; Labandeira & Allen, 2007). So far, results have indicated that it was seed-fern lineages such as medullosans and gigantopterids that experienced the greatest extent of herbivory in extra-swamp habitats, at least for the Early Permian.

Document the role that the end-Permian extinction had on plant-insect associations in Gondwana. The most massive extinction of the Phanerozoic is the end-Permian (P-T) event. Although this event devastated both marine and terrestrial ecosystems, virtually nothing is known of its effect on plant-insect associations. In a recent study with colleagues from South Africa, The Netherlands and United States, we have examined the floristics, palynology, taphonomic style, biostratigraphy, and plant-insect associations across a 50-million-year interval from the Middle Permian to the early Late Triassic in the Karoo Basin of South Africa. Our preliminary research, involving the examination of insect-mediated herbivore damage on leaves, stems, seeds, and other organs, has documented a broad diversity of most exophytic damage on glossopterid-dominated floras during the Permian, with a dominance of external foliage feeding, oviposition and subordinate piercing-and-sucking. By contrast, by the early Late Triassic, there already was a shift toward endophytic modes of herbivory that included leaf mining, galling, and seed predation, in addition to continuation of the Late Permian types of exophytic herbivory. Notably, this before-and-after comparison records (1) a major turnover in the plant hosts and their generalized and specialized insect herbivores before and after the P-T event; (2) a significant lag after the P-T event in which a typical flora of filicalean ferns, peltasperms, corystosperms, voltzialean conifers, ginkgoopsids, cycads and other plant clades became dominant (Middle Triassic), and an even more significant lag in which these plant lineages were colonized by varied insect herbivores (early Late Triassic); and (3) the presence of a major colonization event of generalized to specialized insect herbivores on a mid-Triassic seed-plant flora every bit as dramatic as the one that colonized angiosperms about 100 million years later during the mid Early Cretaceous.

Investigate the role that the end-Cretaceous extinction had on plant-insect associations of North America. An obvious question regarding a recent study of plant-insect associations in the Williston Basin of North Dakota is whether our results were local (Labandeira et al., 2002a, 2002b), or applicable to other worldwide sites. A follow-up study currently is being conducted in the Denver Basin of central Colorado, which is significantly closer to the asteroid impact site of Yucatan, Mexico. A major motivation for analyzing the effect of the K/T event on plant-insect associations from the Denver Basin is to determine if the patterns found in the Williston Basin are repeated further south, including the Raton Basin of New Mexico. To date, these patterns include a high level of extinction of specialized over generalized associations, a major decrease in bulk herbivory, and presence of a protracted interval of low herbivory levels without rebound to previous levels. We anticipate matching our Williston data set of about 13,400 leaf specimens with at least the same number from the Denver Basin, making data from the two basins comparable. In related studies, I and colleagues are investigating the postextinction phase of this event in various basins of the northern Western Interior. Preliminary results suggest that plant-insect associations did not regain latest Cretaceous levels for almost all localities until the early Eocene, approximately 11 million years later (Wilf et al. 2006).

Evaluate vegetational turnover and shifting strategies of insect herbivory resulting from the Early Cenozoic Thermal Maximum (ECTM). In follow-up studies of latest Paleocene to early middle Eocene floras of the Western Interior, we have examined the change from earlier temperate, aseasonal vegetation to later subtropical, seasonal vegetation (Wilf & Labandeira 1999; Wilf et al. 2001). We have documented change in vegetational composition and structure as well as associated insect herbivory in floras representing three successive slices of time, collectively representing an 11-miliion-year period straddling the ECTM. During this interval we noted that herbivory increased as the vegetation ranged from temperate to subtropical, representing a gradient in time that was analogous to the spatial gradient today from the midlatitudes to the tropics. Additionally, we observed that the style of herbivory changed markedly through this interval and was characterized by a widening gap of intensity between the less herbivorized but better defended evergreen species and the more herbivorized and poorly defended evergreen species. Also noted was the emergence of a distinctive group of deciduous, riparian plants—sycamores and poplars—that experienced the highest herbivore levels. These patterns, including insect food-web recovery patterns, now can be tested for generality in other well-preserved and abundant floras in the Western Interior and Patagonia during the late Paleocene, through the ECTM, and later, that straddle this period of intense global warming (Wilf et al. 2005, 2006; Lopez-Vaamonde et al. 2005).

In summary, this research program encompasses diverse approaches involving an investigation of the fossil record of insects, plants, and their associations. The principal directions of this research are: (1) the role that the origin and radiation of novel plant groups and attendant trophic resources had on plant-dependent insects; (2) the short-term to long-term impact that instantaneous extinction events had on the associations between plants and insects; (3) the consequences that more geochronologically prolonged changes in global climate had on insect herbivory patterns and strategies via changes in vegetation composition and structure; and (4) documentation of the dynamics of specific associations between plant-host species and their dependent insect-herbivore species during long stretches of geologic time. These data are being integrated with complementary studies by evolutionary biologists for formulating a more complete, historical perspective regarding how the two most diverse terrestrial groups of organisms have associated in time to generate the bewildering diversity of associations we see today.

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Publications

Iannuzzi, R., and Labandeira, C.C. 2007. The oldest record and early history of insect folivory. Annals of the Entomological Society of America: in preparation.

Ren, D., Labandeira, C.C., Loudon, D., Shih, C.-K., Hotton, C., and Dilcher, D.L. 2007. Mesozoic pollination strategies before angiosperms: long-proboscid scorpionflies nectaring on gymnosperms. Science, in preparation.

Sarzetti, L., Labandeira, C.C., and Genise, J.F. 2007. Leaf-cutter bee trace fossils from Patagonia, Argentina (Curviphytichnus pseudocircus n. isp.) and the early history of South American Megachilidae (Hymenoptera). Journal of Paleontology, in preparation.

Labandeira, C.C., Kvaček, J., and Mostovski, M.B. 2007. Pollination fluids, pollen, and insect pollination of Mesozoic gymnosperms. Taxon: 56: in press.

Labandeira, C.C., and Allen, E.M. 2007. Minimal insect herbivory for the Lower Permian Coprolite Bone Bed site of north-central Texas, USA, and comparison to other late Paleozoic floras. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, in press.

Labandeira, C.C. 2007. Assessing the fossil record of plant-insect associations: ichnodata versus body-fossil data. IN: R. Bromley, L. Buatois, J. Genise, M.G. Mángano, and R. Melchor, (eds.), Ichnology at the Crossroads: A Multidimensional Approach to the Science of Organism-Substrate Interactions, in press.

Royer, D.L., Sack, L., Wilf, P., Lusk, C.H., Jordan, G.J., Niinemets, Ü., Wright, I.J., Westoby, M., Cariglino, B., Coley, P.D., Cutter, A.D., Johnson, K.R., Labandeira, C.C., Moles, A.T., Palmer, M.B., and Valladares, F. 2007. Eocene folivory linked to biomechanically reconstructed leaf mass per area. American Naturalist, submitted.

Lopez-Vaamonde, C., Wikström, N., Labandeira, C., Goodman, S., Godfray, H.C.J., and Cook, J.M. 2006. Molecular phylogenies reveal asynchronous diversification between leaf-mining moths and their host plants. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 19: 1314-1326.

Wilf, P., Labandeira, C.C., Johnson, K.R., and Ellis, B. 2006. Decoupled plant and insect diversity after the end-Cretaceous extinction. Science, 313: 1112-1115.

Labandeira, C.C. 2006. Neuroptera. McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science. E-journal, submitted.

Labandeira, C.C. 2006. Silurian to Triassic plant and insect clades and their associations: new data, a review, and interpretations. Arthropod Systematics & Phylogeny, 64: 53-94.

Ward, P., Labandeira, C.C., Laurin, M., and Berner, R. 2006. Romer’s Gap: a low oxygen interval constraining the timing of arthropod and tetrapod terrestrialization. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A. 103: 16818-16822.

Labandeira, C.C. 2006. The four phases of plant-arthropod associations in deep time. Geologica Acta, 4: 409-438.

Labandeira, C.C. 2005. The fossil record of insect extinction: new approaches and future directions. American Entomologist, 51(1): 14-29.

Wilf, P., Labandeira, C.C., Johnson, K.R., and Cúneo, N.R. Insect herbivory and South American biodiversity: fossil evidence from Eocene Patagonia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences U.S.A, 102: 8944-8948.

Labandeira, C.C. 2005. Invasion of the continents: cyanobacterial crusts to tree-inhabiting arthropods. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 20: 253-262.

Labandeira, C.C. 2005. Fossil history of the Diptera and their associations with plants. IN: B. Wiegmann and D. Yeates, (eds.) pp. 217-273, The Evolutionary Biology of Flies. New York: Columbia University Press.

Labandeira, C.C. 2005. Recent and exciting developments in understanding fossil insects and their terrestrial relatives. American Paleontologist, 13: 8-11.

Gastaldo, R.A., Adendorff, R., Bamford, M., Labandeira, C.C., Neveling, J., and Sims, H. 2005. Taphonomic trends of macrofloral assemblages across the Permian-Triassic boundary, Karoo Basin, South Africa. Palaios, 20: 480-498.

DiMichele, W.A., Behrensmeyer A.K., Olszewski, T.D., Labandeira, C.C., Pandolfi, J.M., Wing, S.L., and Bobe, R. 2004. Long-term stasis in ecological assemblages: evidence from the fossil record. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics, 35: 285-322.

Labandeira, C.C. 2003. Book review of: Atlas of Plants and Animals in Baltic Amber, by W. Weitschat and W. Wichard [Friedrich Pfeil, 2002, 256 p.] Geologica Acta, 1: 146-150.

Labandeira, C.C. 2003. Reading the tree leaves. Natural History, 112(3): 13.

Labandeira, C.C. and Phillips, T.L. 2002. Stem borings and petiole galls from Pennsylvanian tree ferns of Illinois, USA: Implications for the origin of the borer and galling functional-feeding-groups and holometabolous insects. Palaeontographica (A), 264(1/4): 1-84, 16 pls.

Labandeira, C.C., Johnson, K.R., and Wilf, P. 2002. Impact of the terminal Cretaceous event on plant-insect associations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 99: 2061-2066.

Labandeira, C.C. 2002. The history of associations between plants and animals, pp. 26-74, 248-261. IN: Plant-Animal Interactions: An Evolutionary Approach, (eds.) C. Herrera and O. Pellmyr. Blackwell Science: Oxford, U.K.

Labandeira, C.C. 2002. Plant-insect associations from middle Eocene floras of the Pacific Northwest: a preliminary report. Rocky Mountain Geology 37: 31-59.

Kowalewski, M., P.H. Kelley, R.K. Bambach, T.K. Baumiller, S. Bengtson, C.E. Brett, K. Chin, S.J. Culver, G.P. Dietl, J.O. Farlow, F.J. Gahn, G. Haynes, T.R. Holtz, Jr., I. Jenkins, C.C. Labandeira, J.H. Lipps, B. van Valkenburgh, G.J. Vermeij, and S.E. Walker. 2002. The fossil record of predation: methods, patterns, and processes. In M. Kowalewski and P.H. Kelley, (eds.), The Fossil Record of Predation. Paleontological Society Special Papers, 8: 395-398.

Labandeira, C.C. 2002. Paleobiology of predators, parasitoids, and parasites: accommodation and death in the fossil record of terrestrial invertebrates. IN: M. Kowalewski and P.H. Kelley, (eds.), The Fossil Record of Predation. Paleontological Society Special Papers, 8: 211-250.

Labandeira, C.C., Johnson, K.R., and Lang, P. 2002. A preliminary assessment of insect herbivory across the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary: extinction and minimal rebound. IN: The Hell Creek Formation and the Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary in the Northern Great Plains—An Integrated Continental Record at the End of the Cretaceous, eds. J.H. Hartman, K.R. Johnson and D.J. Nichols. Geological Society of America Special Paper 361: 297-327.

Miller, M.F. and Labandeira, C.C. 2002. Slow crawl across the salinity divide: delayed colonization of freshwater ecosystems by invertebrates. Geological Society of America Today, 12(12): 4-10.

Labandeira, C.C. and Eble, G. 2002. Global diversity patterns of insects from the fossil record. Santa Fe Institute Working Paper 121: 1-54.

Wilf, P., Labandeira, C.C., Johnson, K.R., Coley, P.D., and Cutter, A.D. 2001. Insect herbivory, plant defense, and early Cenozoic climate change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 98: 6221-6226.

Labandeira, C.C. 2001. The rise and diversification of insects. IN: Briggs, D.E.G. and Crowther, P.R., (eds.), Palaeobiology II, pp. 82-88. Oxford: Blackwell Science.

Labandeira, C.C., LePage, B.A., and Johnson, A.H. 2001. A Dendroctonus bark engraving (Coleoptera: Scolytidae) from a Middle Eocene Larix (Coniferales: Pinaceae): Early or delayed colonization? American Journal of Botany, 88: 2026-2039.

Mángano, M.G., Labandeira, C.C., Kvale, E., and Buatois, L.A. 2001. The insect trace fossil Tonganoxichnus from the Middle Pennsylvanian of Indiana: paleobiologic and paleoenvironmental implications. Ichnos, 8: 165-175.

Vrsansky, P., Storozhenko, S., Labandeira, C.C., and Ihringova, P. 2001. Galloisiana olgae sp. nov. (Grylloblattodea: Grylloblattidae) and the paleobiology of a relict order of insects. Annals of the Entomological Society of America 94(2): 179-184.

Wilf, P., and Labandeira, C.C. 2000. Plant-insect associations respond to Paleocene-Eocene warming. Geologiska Foreningens Forhandlingar 122(1): 178-179.

Wilf, P., Labandeira, C.C., Kress, J.W., Staines, C.L., Windsor, D.M., Allen, A.L., and Johnson, K.R. 2000. Timing the radiations of leaf-beetles: hispines on gingers from latest Cretaceous to Recent. Science, 289: 291-294.

Labandeira, C.C. 2000. The paleobiology of pollination and its precursors. IN: Phanerozoic Terrestrial Ecosystems, (eds.) R.A. Gastaldo and W.A. DiMichele. Paleontological Society Papers 6: 233-269.

Wilf, P. and Labandeira, C.C. 1999. Response of plant-insect associations to Paleocene-Eocene warming. Science, 284: 2153-2156.

Labandeira, C.C., and Smith, D.M. 1999. Forging a future for fossil insects: thoughts on the First International Paleoentomolgical Conference. Paleobiology, 25: 154-157.

Labandeira, C.C. 1999. Book review of Arthropod Fossils and Phylogeny, edited by G.A. Edgecombe, [Columbia University Press, 1998, 347 pp.]. Palaios, 14: 405-407.

Labandeira, C.C. 1999. Insects and other hexapods. IN: Encyclopedia of Paleontology, ed. R. Singer, pp. 603-624. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, Chicago.

Labandeira, C.C. 1999. Myriapods. IN: Encyclopedia of Paleontology, ed. R. Singer, pp. 767-775. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, Chicago.

Labandeira, C.C. 1998. Early history of arthropod and vascular plant associations. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 26: 329-377.

Labandeira, C.C. 1998. How old is the flower and the fly? Science, 280: 57-59.

Labandeira, C.C. 1998. Plant-insect associations from the fossil record. Geotimes, 43(9): 18-24.

Beck, A.L. and Labandeira, C.C. 1998. Early Permian insect folivory on a gigantopterid-dominated riparian flora from north-central Texas. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 142: 139-173.

Labandeira, C.C. 1998. The role of insects in Late Jurassic to Middle Cretaceous ecosystems. IN: Lucas, S.G., Kirkland, J.I. and Estep, J.W., (eds.), Lower and Middle Cretaceous Terrestrial Ecosystems. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin, 14: 105-124.

Damuth, J., Behrensmeyer, A.K., DiMichele, W.A., Labandeira, C.C., Potts, R. and Wing, S.L. 1997. ETE Database Manual. Evolution of Terrestrial Ecosystems Consortium, Washington, D.C. vii + 250 pp.

Labandeira, C.C., Phillips, T.L. and Norton, R.L. 1997. Oribatid mites and decomposition of plant tissues in Paleozoic coal-swamp forests. Palaios, 12: 317-351.

Labandeira, C.C. 1997. Permian pollen eating. Science 277: 1422-1423.

Labandeira, C.C. 1997. Insect mouthparts: ascertaining the paleobiology of insect feeding strategies. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 28: 153-193.

Labandeira, C.C. and Phillips, T.L. 1996. Insect fluid-feeding on Upper Pennsylvanian tree ferns (Palaeodictyoptera, Marattiales) and the early history of the piercing-and-sucking functional feeding group. Annals of the Entomological Society of America, 89(2): 157-183.

Labandeira, C.C. 1996. Book review of: Invasions of the Land: The Transitions of Organisms from Aquatic to Terrestrial Life, by M.S. Gordon and E.C. Olsen [Columbia University Press, 1995, 312 p.] Écoscience, 3(2): 127-128.

Labandeira, C.C. and Phillips, T.L. 1996. A Late Carboniferous petiole gall and the origin of holometabolous insects. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 93: 8470-8474.

Labandeira, C.C. 1995. Book review of: Quaternary Insects and Their Environments, by S.A. Elias, (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994, 284 p.). Quarterly Review of Biology, 70: 68-69.

Labandeira, C.C. 1995. Fossil insects.In: S.P. Parker, (ed.), McGraw-Hill Yearbook of Science and Technology for 1996, pp. 255-258. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Hughes, N.C. and Labandeira, C.C. 1995. The stability of species in taxonomy. Paleobiology, 21: 401-403.

Labandeira, C.C. and Hughes, N.C. 1994. Biometry of the Upper Cambrian trilobite genus Dikelocephalus and its implications for trilobite systematics. Journal of Paleontology, 67: 492-517.

Labandeira, C.C., Dilcher, D.L., Davis, D.R. and Wagner, D.L. 1994. Ninety-seven million years of angiosperm-insect association: paleobiological insights into the meaning of coevolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 91: 12278-12282.

Labandeira, C.C. 1994. A compendium of fossil insect families. Milwaukee Public Museum Contributions in Biology and Geology, 88: 1-71.

Labandeira, C.C. and Sepkoski, J.J., Jr. 1993. Insect diversity in the fossil record. Science, 261: 310-315.

Labandeira, C.C. 1993. What's new with fossil insects? American Paleontologist, 1: 1-5.

Labandeira, C.C. 1993. Book review of: Life in Amber, by G.O. Poinar, Jr. [Stanford University Press, 1992, 350 p.]. Journal of the New York Entomological Society, 101: 581-585.

Labandeira, C.C. 1993. The real meaning of fossil insects. Palaios, 8: 509-511.

Labandeira, C.C. and Beall, B.S. 1990. Arthropod terrestriality. IN: Mikulic, D., (ed.), "Arthropods: Notes for a Short Course." Short Courses in Paleontology, 3: 214-256.

Beall, B.S. and Labandeira, C.C. Patterns of evolution of chelicerates and tracheates. 1990. IN: Mikulic, D., (Ed.), "Arthropods: Notes for a Short Course." Short Courses in Paleontology, 3: 257-284.

Labandeira, C.C., Beall, B.S. and Hueber, F.M. 1988. Early insect diversification: evidence from a Lower Devonian bristletail from Québec. Science, 242: 913-916.