Study sites
We performed a geographically-coordinated experiment simulating the
presence of ecosystem-engineering structures built by leaf-rolling
caterpillars on plants. The experiment was replicated in 2017-2019 in 52
sites across an 11,790 km latitudinal gradient (45.8° S to 60.2° N) and
elevation spanning from 5 to 2900 m above sea level, comprising diverse
types of biomes, including tropical and temperate forests, xeric
shrubland (caatingas), savannas etc. We considered our sites spatially
independent, as 94% of them were at least 500 km apart from each other.
A detailed description of the sites, including environment and plant
features, is provided in Table S1.