Earth’s insect communities are being rapidly restructured due to anthropogenic global change. One overlooked but potentially major global change driver is carbon dioxide fertilization of plants resulting in nutrient dilution of non-carbon essential elements in plant tissues. Reductions in the concentrations of plant tissue nutrients may already be having serious repercussions for herbivores, taxa that are often on a nutritional knife edge due to their already low-quality diets. Effects on herbivore fitness and populations are expected to ramify across food webs, shaping biodiversity, trophic pyramid shape, and ecosystem function. We review current evidence for insect responses to nutrient dilution, make predictions regarding the where, when, and which of effect direction and strength, and identify key research gaps that need to be filled to test insect community responses to this ubiquitous global change driver.
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