Does the Small White Butterfly (Pieris rapae L.) Aggregate Eggs on Plants with Greater Gas Exchange Activity? (original) (raw)
Related papers
Global Change Biology, 2003
The objective of this study was to determine how increasing atmospheric CO 2 change plant tissue quality in four native grassland grass species (Agrostis stolonifera, Anthoxanthum odoratum, Festuca rubra, Poa pratensis) which are all larval food-plants of Coenonympha pamphilus (Lepidoptera, Satyridae). We assessed the effect of these changes on the performance and larval food-plant preference of C. pamphilus in a greenhouse experiment. Furthermore, we tested the interactive effects of elevated CO 2 and soil nutritional availability in F. rubra and its effect an larval development of C. pamphilus. In general, elevated CO 2 decreased leaf water concentration, nitrogen concentration and specific leaf area (SLA), while leaf starch concentration was increased in all grass species. A species-specific reaction to elevated CO 2 was only found for foliar starch concentration. P. pratensis did not increase its starch concentration under elevated CO 2 conditions, whereas the other three species did. Fertilisation, investigated only for F. rubra, increased leaf nitrogen concentration and amplified the CO 2-induced decrease in leaf nitrogen. Development time of C. pamphilus was on the average prolonged by two days under elevated CO 2 and the prolongation differed from 0.7 to 5.3 days among foodplant species. Pupal fresh weight differed marginally between CO 2 treatments. Fertilisation of the larval food-plant F. rubra shortened development time by one day and significantly increased pupal and adult fresh weights. C. pamphilus larvae showed a clear food-plant preference among grass species at the age of 36 h or older. Additionally, a change of food-plant preference under elevated CO 2 was found. Larvae at ambient CO 2 preferred Agrostis stolonifera and F. rubra, while under elevated CO 2 Anthoxanthum odoratum and P. pratensis were preferred. The present study demonstrates that larval development of C. pamphilus is affected by food-plant species and CO 2 induced changes in foliar chemistry. Although we found some species-specific reactions to elevated CO 2 for foliar chemistry, no such CO 2 by species interaction was found for insect development. The change in food-plant preference of larvae under elevated CO 2 implies potential changes in selection pressure for grass species and might therefore affect evolutionary processes.
Host plant utilization in the comma butterfly: sources of variation and evolutionary implications
Oecologia, 1994
A major challenge in the study of insect-host plant interactions is to understand how the different aspects of offspring performance interact to produce a preference hierarchy in the ovipositing females. In this paper we investigate host plant preference of the polyphagous butterfly Polygonia c-album (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) and compare it with several aspects of the life history of its offspring (growth rate, development time, adult size, survival and female fecundity). Females and offspring were tested on four naturally used host plants (Urtica dioica, Ulmus glabra, Salix caprea, and Betula pubescens). There was substantial individual variation in host plant preference, including reversals in rank order, but the differences were largely confined to differences in the ranking of Urtica dioica and S. caprea. Different aspects of performance on these two plants gave conflicting and complementary results, implying a trade-off between short development time on U dioica, and larger size and higher fecundity on S. caprea. As all performance components showed low individual variation the large variation in host plant preference was interpreted as due to alternative oviposition strategies on the basis of similar 'performance hierarchies'. This indicates that the larval performance component of host-plant utilization may be more conservative to evolutionary change than the preference of ovipositing females. Possible macro-evolutionary implications of this are discussed.
Researches on Population Ecology, 1993
We investigated how the distribution pattern of eggs and larval on the host plant, Turritus glabra, was influenced by the oviposition behavior of the pierid butterfly Anthocharis scolymus. Females searched for the host plants visually and they frequently approached taller host plants with sparse surrounding vegetation. After encountering host plants, oviposition behavior of females was independent of host plant characteristics such as height, density, and type of surrounding vegetation. A female laid eggs singly on a host plants. Most females appeared to lay their eggs regardless of the presense of eggs on the host plant. Consequently, egg and larva tended to be abundant on conspicuous host plants as measured by height or relative isolation from other plants. However, overcrowding of eggs on an individual host decreased the survival rate of larvae.
Journal of Chemical Ecology, 2010
In an attempt to identify chemical signals governing the general flower and silique feeding behavior of larvae of the orange tip butterfly, Anthocharis cardamines (L.), we investigated feeding behavior and chemistry of two major host plants: Cardamine pratensis L. and Alliaria petiolata (Bieb.) Cavara & Grande (garlic mustard). Larvae reportedly feed mainly on flowers and siliques rather than leaves in nature, and did so when observed on the original host plants. Behavioral experiments, using detached A. petiolata branches, however, showed that larvae readily accepted leaves and only the final instar showed a tendency for directed movement towards floral parts. To search for semiochemicals that control plant part preference and to assess possible nutritional consequences of floral parts feeding, we determined glucosinolate profiles and total nitrogen levels of floral parts and leaves. There was only moderate difference between glucosinolate profiles of leaves and floral parts within each of two host plant species. In contrast, the profiles of floral parts differed significantly between them. A. petiolata was dominated by 2-propenyl glucosinolate, while C. pratensis was dominated by aromatic glucosinolates and branched aliphatic glucosinolates, with considerable variation among populations. Nitrogen levels tended to be higher in floral parts than in leaves in A. petiolata, but not in C. pratensis, so floral feeding could not generally be attributed to higher N content. With the exception of a tendency of last instar larvae (L5) to move to the apex and ingest flowers and upper stem, we did not find either a plant chemistry basis or larval acceptance/rejection behavior that could explain the usual feeding of floral parts by orange tip larvae of all instars. However, by artificial manipulation of vertical larval position on host plants, we found that the frequency of leaf vs. flower feeding during 24 hr depended significantly on the initial larval position. Hence, we suggest that the placement of eggs on floral parts by ovipositing female butterflies is a major explanation of orange tip feeding habits previously known from field observations.
Oecologia, 2015
The preference-performance hypothesis posits that the host plant range of plant-feeding insects is ultimately limited by larval costs associated with feeding on multiple resources, and that female egg-laying preferences evolve in response to these costs. The trade-off of either using few host plant species and being a strong competitor on them due to effective utilization or using a wide host plant range but being a poor competitor is further predicted to result in host plant specialization. This follows under the hypothesis that both females and offspring are ultimately favoured by utilizing only the most suitable host(s). We develop an experimental approach to identify such trade-offs, i.e. larval costs associated with being a host generalist, and apply a suite of experiments to two sympatric and syntopic populations of the closely related butterflies Pieris napi and Pieris rapae. These butterflies show variation in their level of host specialization, which allowed comparisons bet...
Allocation of larval and adult resources to reproduction in a fruit-feeding butterfly
Functional Ecology, 2004
1. The source of nutritional resources allocated to reproduction strongly influences reproductive and foraging strategies. While we are beginning to understand the role of adult and larval resources for nectivorous Lepidoptera, essentially nothing is known for the large number of species that feed on fruit as adults. 2. We used stable isotopes to examine allocation of larval-and adult-derived resources to egg production in a tropical frugivorous butterfly, Bicyclus anynana (Butler, 1879), under both ad libitum and semistarvation conditions. The butterfly's larval and adult host plants differ from each other in both carbon and nitrogen isotopic ratios. 3. Adult fruit feeding is required for the onset of oviposition. 4. At peak, adult fruit feeding contributed 55% of the carbon found in eggs under both feeding conditions. This is similar to values for several nectivorous Lepidoptera with similar ovarian dynamics and egg C/N. 5. Egg 15 N declined rapidly during the first week of oviposition, suggesting that the adult diet was not contributing nitrogen to egg production. Values rose during the following 2 weeks, consistent either with adult contribution or with isotopic fractionation. 6. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that fruit serves as a carbon source for egg production in a similar manner as nectar. However, more work is needed to elucidate fully fruit's role as a nitrogen source.
Host-plant-induced larval decision-making in a habitat/host-plant generalist butterfly
Ecology, 2010
Phenotypic plasticity can be a passive response to fluctuating environmental conditions or an active and presumably adaptive (evolved) response selected for in different environments. Here we ask if the larval decision to enter diapause when reared on a host plant associated with a colder habitat is an active or a passive response to host-plant quality or suitability. We compare plasticity in larval propensity to enter diapause of the habitat generalist butterfly Leptidea sinapis and the meadow specialist Leptidea reali in a range of temperatures and long day length on a forest plant, Lathyrus linifolius, and a meadowassociated plant, Lathyrus pratensis. The warmer meadow habitat promotes direct development whereas the colder forest habitat is conducive to diapause. Larvae of L. sinapis had a higher propensity to enter diapause when reared on the forest plant L. linifolius across all temperatures. Conversely, the propensity of L. reali to enter diapause was consistently lower and did not differ between host plants. Larval growth rates were similar between and within butterfly species and between host plants. Hence, we conclude that larval pathway decision-making in L. sinapis is an active response mediated by information from their host plants.
Insect Science, 2013
In most phytophagous insects, the larval diet strongly affects future fitness and in species that do not feed on plant parts as adults, larval diet is the main source of nitrogen. In many of these insect-host plant systems, the immature larvae are considered to be fully dependent on the choice of the mothers, who, in turn, possess a highly developed host recognition system. This circumstance allows for a potential mother-offspring conflict, resulting in the female maximizing her fecundity at the expense of larval performance on suboptimal hosts. In two experiments, we aimed to investigate this relationship in the polyphagous comma butterfly, Polygonia c-album, by comparing the relative acceptance of low-and medium-ranked hosts between females and neonate larvae both within individuals between life stages, and between mothers and their offspring. The study shows a variation between females in oviposition acceptance of low-ranked hosts, and that the degree of acceptance in the mothers correlates with the probability of acceptance of the same host in the larvae. We also found a negative relationship between stages within individuals as there was a higher acceptance of lower ranked hosts in females who had abandoned said host as a larva. Notably, however, neonate larvae of the comma butterfly did not unconditionally accept to feed from the least favorable host species even when it was the only food source. Our results suggest the possibility that the disadvantages associated with a generalist oviposition strategy can be decreased by larval participation in host plant choice.