Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK.
Ecol Lett. 2010 Mar;13(3):383-93. doi: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2009.01433.x. Epub 2010 Jan 21.
The extent to which behavioural choices reflect fine-tuned evolutionary adaptation remains an open debate. For herbivorous insects, the preference-performance hypothesis (PPH) states that female insects will evolve to oviposit on hosts on which their offspring fare best. In this study, we use meta-analysis to assess the balance of evidence for and against the PPH, and to evaluate the role of individual factors proposed to influence host selection by female insects. We do so in an explicitly bitrophic context (herbivores versus plants). Overall, our analyses offer clear support for the PPH: Offspring survive better on preferred plant types, and females lay more eggs on plant types conducive to offspring performance. We also found evidence for an effect of diet breadth on host choice: female preference for 'good quality plants' was stronger in oligophagous insects than in polyphagous insects. Nonetheless, despite the large numbers of preference-performance studies conducted to date, sample sizes in our meta-analysis are low due to the inconsistent format used by authors to present their results. To improve the situation, we invite authors to contribute to the data base emerging from this work, with the aim of reaching a strengthened synthesis of the subject field.
行为选择在多大程度上反映了经过微调的进化适应仍然是一个悬而未决的问题。对于草食性昆虫来说，偏好-表现假说（PPH）指出，雌性昆虫会进化到在其后代表现最好的宿主上产卵。在这项研究中，我们使用荟萃分析来评估支持和反对 PPH 的证据平衡，并评估个体因素在影响雌性昆虫宿主选择中的作用。我们在明确的双营养关系（草食性昆虫与植物）背景下这样做。总的来说，我们的分析清楚地支持了 PPH：后代在偏好的植物类型上存活得更好，雌性在有利于后代表现的植物类型上产卵更多。我们还发现了饮食广度对宿主选择的影响的证据：寡食性昆虫比多食性昆虫对“高质量植物”的偏好更强。尽管迄今为止已经进行了大量的偏好-表现研究，但由于作者用来呈现其结果的不一致格式，我们荟萃分析中的样本量仍然很小。为了改善这种情况，我们邀请作者为正在形成的数据库做出贡献，旨在对这一领域进行更有力的综合。
