Developmental plasticity and reduced susceptibility to natural enemies following host plant defoliation in a specialized herbivore.

Oecologia
Glen R Hood, James R Ott

Abstract

Host-specific phytophagous insects that are short lived and reliant on ephemeral plant tissues provide an excellent system in which to investigate the consequences of disruption in the timing of resource availability on consumer populations and their subsequent interactions with higher tropic levels. The specialist herbivore, Belonocnema treatae (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae) induces galls on only newly flushed leaves of live oak, Quercus fusiformis. In central Texas (USA) episodic defoliation of the host creates variation in the timing of resource availability and results in heterogeneous populations of B. treatae that initiate development at different times. We manipulated the timing of leaf flush in live oak via artificial defoliation to test the hypothesis that a 6- to 8-week delay in the availability of resources alters the timing of this gall former's life cycle events, performance and survivorship on its host, and susceptibility to natural enemies. B. treatae exhibits plasticity in development time, as the interval from egg to emergence was significantly reduced when gallers oviposited into the delayed leaf flush. As a consequence, the phenologies of gall maturation and adult emergence remain synchronized in spite of variation...Continue Reading

References

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Nov 1, 1987·Oecologia·P W PriceJ Tahvanainen

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Citations

Dec 3, 2011·Evolution; International Journal of Organic Evolution·Scott P EganJames R Ott
Oct 30, 2013·Journal of Evolutionary Biology·J R Ott, S P Egan
Jan 27, 2017·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Kelly L WeinersmithScott P Egan
Jan 23, 2019·Evolution; International Journal of Organic Evolution·Glen R HoodScott P Egan
Oct 3, 2020·Ecology and Evolution·Amanda K WeaverScott P Egan

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