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. 2017 Dec 5;7(1):16934.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-17231-2.

Diet breadth modulates preference - performance relationships in a phytophagous insect community

Maud Charlery de la Masselière  1   2 , Benoît Facon  3 , Abir Hafsi  4 , Pierre-François Duyck  5
Affiliations

Diet breadth modulates preference - performance relationships in a phytophagous insect community

Maud Charlery de la Masselière et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

In most phytophagous insects, larvae are less mobile than adults and their fitness depends on the plant chosen by their mother. To maximize fitness, adult preference and larval performance should thus be correlated. This correlation is not always apparent and seems to increase with the level of specialisation, i.e. specialists have a stronger preference for high quality host plant species compared to generalists. The aim of this study was to test whether the relationship between female preference and larval performance was stronger for specialists than for generalists within a community of fruit flies (Diptera: Tephritidae). A total of six fruit fly species was used, including four generalists, and two specialists co-existing in La Reunion island (France). We estimated oviposition preference through the number of eggs laid and larval performance through the larval survival on 29 different host plants species belonging to 15 families in the laboratory and evaluated the relationship between these two traits. Preference-performance relationship differed according to the degree of specialisation with a strong positive correlation for specialists and no relationship for generalists. These results substantiate the theory that choosing high quality hosts is more important for specialists that are adapted to survive on fewer host plants than for generalists.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Female preference and larval performance for each (a) specialist species: D. demmerezi and Z. cucurbitae and each (b) generalist species: C. catoirii, C. capitata, C. quilicii and B. zonata. Each number represents one plant species and the correspondence between the name and number can be found in the Table 1. Green bars correspond to fruits belonging to the Cucurbitaceae family.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Relationship between the strength of the preference – performance relationship and the diet breadth of the Tephritidae species. For each Tephritidae species, the correlation between the female preference and the larval performance is assessed by the Pearson correlation index r, and the diet breadth is assessed by mean number equivalent alpha diversity of the female preference.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Relationship between adult preference and larval performance for generalist and specialist species. The female preference is represented by the number of eggs laid. Within each degree of specialisation, species are represented by a distinct colour.
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