Family matters: effect of host plant variation in chemical and mechanical defenses on a sequestering specialist herbivore.

Oecologia
Romina D DimarcoJames A Fordyce

Abstract

Insect herbivores contend with various plant traits that are presumed to function as feeding deterrents. Paradoxically, some specialist insect herbivores might benefit from some of these plant traits, for example by sequestering plant chemical defenses that herbivores then use as their own defense against natural enemies. Larvae of the butterfly species Battus philenor (L.) (Papilionidae) sequester toxic alkaloids (aristolochic acids) from their Aristolochia host plants, rendering larvae and adults unpalatable to a broad range of predators. We studied the importance of two putative defensive traits in Aristolochia erecta: leaf toughness and aristolochic acid content, and we examined the effect of intra- and interplant chemical variation on the chemical phenotype of B. philenor larvae. It has been proposed that genetic variation for sequestration ability is "invisible to natural selection" because intra- and interindividual variation in host-plant chemistry will largely eliminate a role for herbivore genetic variation in determining an herbivore's chemical phenotype. We found substantial intra- and interplant variation in leaf toughness and in the aristolochic acid chemistry in A. erecta. Based on field observati...Continue Reading

References

Nov 1, 1970·Toxicon : Official Journal of the International Society on Toxinology·M RothschildR R Harman
Dec 1, 2001·Annual Review of Entomology·Myron P ZaluckiStephen B Malcolm
Apr 8, 2004·Evolution; International Journal of Organic Evolution·James A Fordyce, Chris C Nice
Apr 1, 2008·Evolution; International Journal of Organic Evolution·James A Fordyce, Chris C Nice
Nov 1, 1994·Oecologia·Mamoru Matsuki, Stephen F MacLean

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