ILLINOIS NATURAL HISTORY SURVEY 
SECTION OF FAUNISTIC SURVEYS AND INSECT IDENTIFICATION 
Urbana, Illinois F-4 June 1, 1962 

A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF INSECT~VASCULAR PLANT ASSOCIATIONS 
IN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA 
INTRODUCTION 
Despite the tremendous economic losses caused by phytophagous insects and 
the vital importance of insect-plant relationships to agricultural sciences, 
nowhere in the North American literature is there a comprehensive compilation 
by plant families of principal works that treat insect associates of single 
species or genera of vascular plants. Our efforts to find reliable plant host 
association information for several beetle families disclosed this lack of 
available bibliographies as well as some inconsistencies in the method of 
reporting plant-insect relationships. 
In the course of studies in our individual specialties, we have found many 
references that provided us with useful information and ideas. We have compiled 
them in this report under various categories, believing that they will quickly 
provide for others an initial source for which we originally searched. 
Undoubtedly this compilation will aid others in locating references which we 
have missed. It is our hope that it will stimulate the unearthing of unpublished 
theses on the subject, and that it will focus attention not only on the work 
that has already been accomplished, but also on areas that are in need of 
exploration. 
As we arranged references in order by plant families, we became aware that 
there exist many families and genera for which no studies have been published on 
the plant-—insect relationships. Certainly these families and omitted genera 
would be fruitful areas of investigation for a master's or doctoral thesis. 
In our scrutiny of the literature, we were constantly confronted with 
inconsistencies in the methods of reporting host Gata, and uncertainties in 
reporting the degree of association of the insect with its host plant. We feel 
that the ideal report should state as fully as possible the relationships of 
each insect species in all of its stages with each stage of the plant species. 
It should also recognize that insect associations range from that of simply a 
resting site to one in which the insect is an obligatory associate of a single 
plant species. Many so-called “host records" signify only that the insect was 
collected on the plant, and may or may not indicate an actual breeding associ- 
ation. However, indefinite records of this nature should not be hastily 
discarded until the status of the association can be ascertained because such 
records may offer the only clues to the true relationships between the organisms. 
