Station d'Écologie Théorique et Expérimentale, CNRS et Université Paul Sabatier, 09200 Moulis, France; email:
Annu Rev Entomol. 2021 Jan 7;66:1-22. doi: 10.1146/annurev-ento-022720-061725. Epub 2020 Sep 14.
This review was solicited as an autobiography. The "problems" in my title have two meanings. First, they were professional difficulties caused by my decision to study oviposition preferences of butterflies that were not susceptible to traditional preference-testing designs. Until I provided video, my claim that the butterflies duplicate natural post-alighting host-assessment behavior when placed on hosts by hand was not credible, and the preference-testing technique that I had developed elicited skepticism, anger, and derision. The second meaning of "problems" is scientific. Insect preference comes with complex dimensionality that interacts with host acceptability. Part Two of this review describes how my group's work in this area has revealed unexpected axes of variation in plant-insect interactions-axes capable of frustrating attempts to derive unequivocal conclusions from apparently sensible experimental designs. The possibility that these complexities are lurking should be kept in mind as preference and performance experiments are devised.
这篇综述是应约撰写的自传。我标题中的“问题”有两层含义。首先，它们是由于我决定研究那些不适合传统偏好测试设计的蝴蝶产卵偏好而产生的专业困难。在我提供视频之前，我声称蝴蝶在被人工放置到寄主上时会重复自然的着落后寄主评估行为，这一说法是不可信的，而我所开发的偏好测试技术也引起了怀疑、愤怒和嘲笑。“问题”的第二层含义是科学上的。昆虫的偏好具有与寄主可接受性相互作用的复杂维度。本综述的第二部分描述了我们小组在这一领域的工作如何揭示了植物-昆虫相互作用中意想不到的变化轴——这些变化轴能够挫败从看似合理的实验设计中得出明确结论的尝试。在设计偏好和性能实验时，应该牢记这些复杂性可能存在的可能性。
