Asking the pikas politely…
Pieris macdunnoughii, a butterfly native to the Rock Mountains in Colorado, is a specialist on mustard plants. An invasive mustard, Thlaspi arvense, introduced approximately 100 years ago creates an evolutionary trap for P. macdunnoughii due to the chemical signals that encourage ovipositioning, but it does not support larval development. Such interactions suggest larvae will develop means to successfully feed on T. arvense. First instar feeding behavior on T. arvense was compared to behavior on native host plants, Cardamine cordifolia and Descurainia incana. In laboratory trials, larvae were given T. arvense or C. cordifolia and photographed in two hour intervals for gut content. The results show that larvae fill their guts soon after encountering C. cordifolia, but for T. arvense larvae eat only small amounts of leaves and hardly fill their guts, exhibiting deterrent properties. Similar patterns of herbivory were observed in field trials where larvae were placed on either T. arvense or C. cordifolia, though larvae in the lab filled their guts more than those in the field. In a feeding assay with sinigrin, a glucosinolate believed to be the precursor in a metabolic pathway that produces hydrogen cyanide, 50μmol of sinigrin per gram of leaf mass were added to T. arvense, C. cordifolia, and D. incana leaves and fed to larvae along with control leaves painted with water. The results suggest larvae perform best on D. incana despite added sinigrin and sinigrin has deterrent effects for all species and increases larval death.
Knowledge graph centered on Larval feeding behavior and leaf components that a with 34 nodes and 92 connections. Top connected: Ligusticum porteri, Coevolution of pierid butterflies and their crucif, Lepidoptera, Phytochemical correlates of herbivory in a communi, Boechera stricta.
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