Abstract
Unlike mammals, most invertebrates provide no direct parental care for their progeny, which makes a well-selected oviposition site crucial. However, little is known about the female evaluation of opportunities and threats during host selection. Leveraging the wide range of host plants used by the polyphagous pest, Spodoptera littoralis , we investigate oviposition choice between two plants of different nutritional quality. Females prefer to lay their eggs on the host plant, which has inferior larval development and more natural enemies but provides lower predation rates. On the superior host plant, a major predator shows more successful search behavior and is more attracted to herbivore-induced volatiles. Our findings show that predator efficacy and odor-guided attraction, rather than predator abundance, determine enemy free space. We postulate that predators' behaviors contribute to the weak correlation between preference and performance during host plant selection in S. littoralis and in polyphagous insects in general.
Abstract from the paper’s OpenAlex record; open copy licensed cc-by. Read at the source ↗
The text the model read, with the source record’s inline markup (italics, sub- and superscripts) rendered and its character entities decoded; quote offsets refer to the raw text.
Claims 6
Claim · model-written summary
Spodoptera littoralis females preferred the host plant with inferior larval development.
- Taxon
- host plante0
- Interactor
- Spodoptera littoralis
Spodoptera littoralise1pest - Outcome
- prefer to lay their eggse0
- Qualifier
- inferior larval developmente0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Females prefer to lay their eggs on the host plant, which has inferior larval development and more natural enemies but provides lower predation rates”
e1“polyphagous pest, Spodoptera littoralis”
Claim · model-written summary
The preferred host plant had more natural enemies but lower predation rates.
- Taxon
- host plante0
- Interactor
- Spodoptera littoralisSpodoptera littoralise1pest
- Outcome
- lower predation ratese0
- Direction
- lowere0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“the host plant, which has inferior larval development and more natural enemies but provides lower predation rates”
e1“polyphagous pest, Spodoptera littoralis”
Claim · model-written summary
On the superior host plant, a major predator searched more successfully.
- Taxon
- host plante0
- Interactor
- Spodoptera littoralisSpodoptera littoralise1pest
- Second interactor
- a major predatore0other
- Outcome
- a major predator shows more successful search behaviore0
- Direction
- more successfule0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“On the superior host plant, a major predator shows more successful search behavior”
e1“polyphagous pest, Spodoptera littoralis”
Claim · model-written summary
On the superior host plant, a major predator was more attracted to herbivore-induced volatiles.
- Taxon
- host plante0
- Interactor
- Spodoptera littoralisSpodoptera littoralise1pest
- Second interactor
- a major predatore0other
- Outcome
- attracted to herbivore-induced volatilese0
- Direction
- moree0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“On the superior host plant, a major predator shows more successful search behavior and is more attracted to herbivore-induced volatiles”
e1“polyphagous pest, Spodoptera littoralis”
Claim · model-written summary
Predator efficacy and odor-guided attraction determine enemy-free space.
- Taxon
- host plante1
- Interactor
- S. littoralisSpodoptera littoralise1pest
- Outcome
- enemy free spacee0
- Qualifier
- predator efficacy and odor-guided attractione0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“predator efficacy and odor-guided attraction, rather than predator abundance, determine enemy free space”
e1“host plant selection in S. littoralis”
Claim · model-written summary
Predator behavior may explain weak preference-performance correlation in host choice.
- Taxon
- host plante0
- Interactor
- S. littoralisSpodoptera littoralise0pest
- Outcome
- weak correlation between preference and performancee0
- Qualifier
- predators' behaviorse0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“predators' behaviors contribute to the weak correlation between preference and performance during host plant selection in S. littoralis”