Price Peter W, Willson Mary F
Department of Entomology, University of Illinois, 320 Morrill Hall, 61801, Urbana, Illinois, USA.
Department of Ecology, Ethology and Evolution, University of Illinois, 61801, Urbana, Illinois, USA.
Oecologia. 1976 Dec;25(4):331-340. doi: 10.1007/BF00345606.
The impact of differences in host plants on individuals and populations of insect herbivores was investigated using the milkweed longhorn beetle, Tetraopes tetrophthalmus (Forster), larvae of which feed parasitically on host rhizomes. One host, Asclepias syriaca L., was larger in stem and rhizome diameter and grew in cooler soil than the other host, A. verticillata L. The major effects on beetles were retarded phenology at the cooler site and reduced size on the smaller host. Reduced size of beetles was correlated with several important individual attributes: reduced length of life, number of ovarioles, egg size, and a reduced probability of mating with large beetles. The population consequences of these characteristics, largely inferred from these observations, were little or no outbreeding in the small population on A. verticillata.
利用乳草长角甲虫（Tetraopes tetrophthalmus (Forster)）研究了寄主植物差异对食草昆虫个体和种群的影响，该甲虫幼虫以寄生方式取食寄主根茎。一种寄主植物——阔叶马利筋（Asclepias syriaca L.），其茎和根茎直径更大，生长在比另一种寄主植物——轮叶马利筋（A. verticillata L.）更凉爽的土壤中。对甲虫的主要影响是在较凉爽的地点物候延迟，以及在较小的寄主上体型变小。甲虫体型变小与几个重要的个体特征相关：寿命缩短、卵巢管数量减少、卵的大小减小，以及与大型甲虫交配的概率降低。这些特征对种群的影响，很大程度上是从这些观察结果推断出来的，即在轮叶马利筋上的小种群中很少或没有远交。
