Piper cenocladum
Understory Shrub; can reach heights of 1.5m.
Leaves are glaucous. Petioles are hollow and occupied by ants (Pheidole bicornis).
This information is based an ongoing project dedicated to the inventory and dissemination of information on lepidopteran larvae, their host plants, and their parasitoids in a Costa Rican tropical wet forest.
N=1026 herbivore associations as of 2012.
Geometridae: Cyclophora sp.; N=1, Eois apyraria (Guenee); N=314, Eois cedon (Druce); N=2, Eois nympha (Schaus); N=646, Eois nov. spp.; N=31, Eois zenobia (Schaus); N=3.
Hesperiidae: Dyscophellus phraxanor (Hewitson); N=1, Quadrus cerialis (Stoll); N=3.
Limacodidae: Euclea plugma (Sepp); N=1.
Noctuidae: Spodoptera sp.; N=1.
Tortricidae: Anacrusis nephrodes (Walsingham); N=2.
Larval lepidopteran herbivores reared in Heredia Province, Costa Rica (La Selva Biological Station).
Piper cenocladum has been experimentally shown to deter herbivory via a suite of detterents including mutualistic ant species and nitrogen-containing secondary compounds. For more information on defenses employed against herbivores and associated intra- and interspecific eological costs and trade-offs by P. cenocladum and 2 closely related Piper species, see attached pdfs (Dyer et al., 2003, Fincher et al., 2008).
For Piper phylogeny see attached pdf (Jaramillo et al., 2008).
For evolutionary relationship between Piper cenocladum and the specialist caterpillar Eois, see attached pdf (Wilson et al., 2012).
For original publication details of Piper cenocladum see: Prim. Fl. Costaric. 2(3): 259-260 259 1899.
P. cenocladum is found in Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama.
This information was accessed through the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institue Herbarium.
Larval lepidopteran herbivores collected from P. cenocladum in Heredia Province, Costa Rica (La Selva Biological Station, Tirimbina).
P. cenocladum is an obligate myrmecophyte with the ant species Pheidole bicornis.
For more information on this ant-plant mutualism see attached pdfs (Letourneau and Dyer, 1998a; Letourneau and Dyer, 1998b; Dyer et al., 2001; Tepe et al., 2007).
Piper cenocladum is a member of Piper section Macrostachys.
Piper pentagonum Trel. is a synonym of the accepted name Piper cenocaldum C. DC. This information was accessed through The Plant List.