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Behavioral and morphological responses of an insect herbivore to low nutrient quality are inhibited by plant chemical defenses

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Abstract

Animals have several strategies to contend with nutritionally poor diets, including compensatory consumption and enhanced food utilization efficiencies. Plants produce a diversity of defense compounds that affect the ability of herbivores to utilize these strategies in response to variation in food nutritional quality. Little is known, however, about effects of allelochemicals on herbivores utilizing integrated behavioral and morphological responses to reduced food quality. Our objectives were to (1) examine how variation in diet nutritional quality influences compensatory responses of a generalist insect herbivore, and (2) determine how plant defenses affect these processes. Gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar) larvae were administered one of nine combinations of diet having low, moderate, or high nutritional quality and 0, 2, or 4 % purified aspen (Populus tremuloides) salicinoids. We quantified larval growth, consumption, frass production, and biomass allocation to midgut tissue over a 4-day bioassay. In the absence of salicinoids, larvae compensated for reduced nutritional quality and maintained similar growth across all diets through increased consumption, altered midgut biomass allocation, and improved processing efficiencies. Dietary salicinoids reduced larval consumption, midgut biomass allocation, digestive efficiencies, and growth at all nutritional levels, but the effect size was more pronounced when larvae were fed nutritionally suboptimal diets. Our findings demonstrate that integrated behavioral and morphological compensatory responses to reduced food quality are affected by plant defenses, ultimately limiting compensatory responses and reducing larval performance.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Kennedy Rubert-Nason for chemical analysis of salicinoid extracts. Early iterations of this manuscript were improved by critical assessments by Ikkei Shikano, Marion Le Gall, and several anonymous reviewers. This work was supported by National Science Foundation grant DEB-0841609 to RLL, US Environmental Protection Agency Science to Achieve Results Fellowship Program to CWH, and USDA NIFA AFRI Fellowship Grant 2012-67012-19900 to JJC.

Author contributions

RLL secured funding for the experiment; JJC and CWH conceptualized and designed the experiment, with input from RLL; JJC and CWH collected foliar material and performed salicinoid extractions; JJC constructed the dietary treatments, performed the bioassays, and collected and analyzed the data; JJC and CJM wrote the manuscript, with input from RLL and CWH.

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Author notes

  1. J. J. Couture

    Present address: Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

  2. C. J. Mason

    Present address: Department of Entomology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

  3. C. W. Habeck

    Present address: Department of Biology, Kutztown University, Kutztown, PA, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Entomology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    J. J. Couture, C. J. Mason & R. L. Lindroth

  2. Department of Zoology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    C. W. Habeck

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  1. J. J. Couture
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  2. C. J. Mason
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  4. R. L. Lindroth
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Correspondence to J. J. Couture.

Additional information

Handling Editor: Gimme Walter.

J. J. Couture and C. J. Mason have contributed equally to the writing of this manuscript.

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Couture, J.J., Mason, C.J., Habeck, C.W. et al. Behavioral and morphological responses of an insect herbivore to low nutrient quality are inhibited by plant chemical defenses. Arthropod-Plant Interactions 10, 341–349 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11829-016-9439-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11829-016-9439-7

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