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Preference for high concentrations of plant pyrrolizidine alkaloids in the specialist arctiid moth Utetheisa ornatrix depends on previous experience

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Abstract

Secondary metabolites are one the most pervasive defensive mechanisms in plants. Many specialist herbivores have evolved adaptations to overcome these defensive compounds. Some herbivores can even take advantage of these compounds by sequestering them for protection and/or mate attraction. One of the most studied specialist insects that sequesters secondary metabolites is the arctiid moth Utetheisa ornatrix. This species sequesters pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PAs) from its host plant, the legume Crotalaria spp. The sequestered PAs are used as a predator repellent and as a mating pheromone. We used this species to test larval preference for different concentrations of PAs. We purified PAs from plant material and added them at different concentrations to an artificial diet. Larvae of U. ornatrix previously feeding on low and high PA concentration artificial diets were allowed to choose between two new artificial diets with different PA concentrations. The amount of PAs sequestered and larval preference were dependent on their previous exposure to low or high PA content in the diet. Larvae that were pretreated with a low PA diet significantly consumed more diet with the high PA concentration, while larvae that were pretreated with a high PA diet showed no discrimination between future feeding of different PA concentration diets. We discuss our results using mechanistic and evolutionary approaches. Finally, we discuss how these results have important implications on the evolution of plant herbivore interactions and how specialist herbivores may decrease the levels of chemical defenses on plant populations.

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Acknowledgments

J. R. Parra and D. Navas provided the artificial diet protocol. The manuscript was improved by comments from D. Rodrigues and two anonymous reviewers. We thank D. J. Futuyma for discussions about this project. M. F. Pereira helped in the laboratory. We thank the Functional Ecology Research and Training Laboratory (SBU) for equipment use. We also thank the Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis and the U.S. Department of Agriculture for permits to export and import live organisms. This work is contribution number 1222 in Ecology and Evolution from the Stony Brook University. Financial support was provided by the National Science Foundation (DEB 0807418) to RC and the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo and the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (98/01065-7, 11/17708-0, and 304969/2006-0) to JRT.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology and Evolution, Stony Brook University, 650 Life Sciences Building, Stony Brook, NY, 11794-5245, USA

    Adam Hoina & Rodrigo Cogni

  2. Laboratório de Ecologia Química, Departamento de Biologia Animal, Instituto de Biologia, Unicamp, Caixa Postal 6109, Campinas, São Paulo, 13083-970, Brazil

    Carlos Henrique Zanini Martins & José Roberto Trigo

  3. Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3EH, UK

    Rodrigo Cogni

Authors
  1. Adam Hoina
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  2. Carlos Henrique Zanini Martins
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  3. José Roberto Trigo
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  4. Rodrigo Cogni
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Correspondence to Rodrigo Cogni.

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Handling Editors: Yvan Rahbe and Heikki Hokkanen.

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Hoina, A., Martins, C.H.Z., Trigo, J.R. et al. Preference for high concentrations of plant pyrrolizidine alkaloids in the specialist arctiid moth Utetheisa ornatrix depends on previous experience. Arthropod-Plant Interactions 7, 169–175 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11829-012-9232-1

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