Oak bodyguards
Methodology
Over the last ten years, a simple, effective, fun and inexpensive method developped in the scientific community to estimate the activity of herbivore predators: the installation, on plants, of frake caterpillars made with modelling clay. Predators are tricked: they attack lures as if they were real preys and leave traces of beaks, teeth or mandibles, which are then counted.
In spring 2018, scientists from 15 European countries, with the help of French, English, Spanish, Swiss and German schoolchildren, installed hundreds of clay caterpillars in oaks. They counted traces of predator attacks and estimated the damage caused by herbivorous insects on oak leaves. In autumn 2018, they will carry out chemical analyses on the leaves to quantify their defences.
They will carry on next year and need help!