Lampasona Timothy, Rodriguez-Saona Cesar, Nielsen Anne L
Department of Entomology Rutgers University Bridgeton New Jersey USA.
Department of Entomology Rutgers University Chatsworth New Jersey USA.
Ecol Evol. 2022 Apr 19;12(4):e8841. doi: 10.1002/ece3.8841. eCollection 2022 Apr.
In phytophagous insects, adult attraction and oviposition preference for a host plant are often positively correlated with their immature fitness; however, little is known how this preference-performance relationship changes within insect populations utilizing different host plants. Here, we investigated differences in the preference and performance of two populations of a native North American frugivorous insect pest, the plum curculio ()-one that utilizes peaches and another that utilizes blueberries as hosts-in the Mid-Atlantic United States. We collected . adult populations from peach and blueberry farms and found that they exhibited a clear preference for the odors of, as well as an ovipositional preference for, the hosts they were collected from, laying 67%-83% of their eggs in their respective collected hosts. To measure . larval performance, a fitness index was calculated using data on larval weights, development, and survival rate from egg to 4th instars when reared on the parent's collected and novel hosts. Larvae of . adults collected from peach had high fitness on peach but low fitness when reared on blueberry. In contrast, larvae from . adults collected in blueberry had high fitness regardless of the host on which they were reared. In this study, we show that utilizing a novel host such as blueberry incurs a fitness cost for . from peaches, but this cost was not observed for . from blueberries, indicating that the preference-performance relationship is present in the case of insects reared on peach, but insects reared on blueberry were more flexible and able to utilize either host, despite preferring blueberry.
在植食性昆虫中，成虫对寄主植物的吸引力和产卵偏好通常与其幼虫的适合度呈正相关；然而，对于利用不同寄主植物的昆虫种群，这种偏好与表现之间的关系如何变化却知之甚少。在此，我们调查了北美本土一种食果性害虫——李象甲（）的两个种群在偏好和表现上的差异，其中一个种群以桃子为寄主，另一个种群以蓝莓为寄主，研究地点位于美国中大西洋地区。我们从桃子和蓝莓农场收集了成虫种群，发现它们对所采集寄主的气味表现出明显偏好，并且在产卵时也偏好所采集的寄主，它们所产的卵有67%-83%产在各自采集的寄主上。为了衡量幼虫的表现，我们根据幼虫体重、发育情况以及从卵到四龄幼虫阶段在其亲本采集的寄主和新寄主上饲养时的存活率数据计算了一个适合度指数。从桃子上采集的成虫所产幼虫在桃子上饲养时适合度高，但在蓝莓上饲养时适合度低。相比之下，从蓝莓上采集的成虫所产幼虫无论在何种寄主上饲养，适合度都很高。在本研究中，我们表明，对于以桃子为寄主的李象甲来说，利用蓝莓这种新寄主会导致适合度成本增加，但对于以蓝莓为寄主的李象甲来说并未观察到这种成本，这表明在以桃子为寄主饲养的昆虫中存在偏好与表现的关系，但以蓝莓为寄主饲养的昆虫更具灵活性，尽管它们更喜欢蓝莓，但仍能够利用任何一种寄主。
