Influence of Dietary Experience on the Induction of Preference of Adult Moths and Larvae for a New Olfactory Cue

In Lepidoptera, host plant selection is first conditioned by oviposition site preference of adult females followed by feeding site preference of larvae. Dietary experience to plant volatile cues can induce larval and adult host plant preference. We investigated how the parent's and self-experie...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2015-08, Vol.10 (8), p.e0136169-e0136169
Main Authors: Petit, Christophe, Le Ru, Bruno, Dupas, Stéphane, Frérot, Brigitte, Ahuya, Peter, Kaiser-Arnauld, Laure, Harry, Myriam, Calatayud, Paul-André
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adults
Animals
Antennae
Arthropod Antennae - physiology
Artificial diets
Benzaldehydes
Biodiversity
Borers
Busseola fusca
Butterflies & moths
Conditioning
Cues
Diet
Electroantennograms
Female
Females
Flowers & plants
Food Preferences - physiology
Herbivores
Herbivory
Host plants
Host preferences
Host selection
Host Specificity - physiology
Larva - physiology
Larvae
Lepidoptera
Life Sciences
Male
Moths
Moths - physiology
Neurophysiology
Noctuidae
Olfactory stimuli
Oviposition
Parents
Phenotypic plasticity
Place preferences
Plants
Poaceae
Smell - physiology
Species
Trichoplusia ni
Vanillin
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Summary:In Lepidoptera, host plant selection is first conditioned by oviposition site preference of adult females followed by feeding site preference of larvae. Dietary experience to plant volatile cues can induce larval and adult host plant preference. We investigated how the parent's and self-experience induce host preference in adult females and larvae of three lepidopteran stem borer species with different host plant ranges, namely the polyphagous Sesamia nonagrioides, the oligophagous Busseola fusca and the monophagous Busseola nairobica, and whether this induction can be linked to a neurophysiological phenotypic plasticity. The three species were conditioned to artificial diet enriched with vanillin from the neonate larvae to the adult stage during two generations. Thereafter, two-choice tests on both larvae and adults using a Y-tube olfactometer and electrophysiological (electroantennography [EAG] recordings) experiments on adults were carried out. In the polyphagous species, the induction of preference for a new olfactory cue (vanillin) by females and 3rd instar larvae was determined by parents' and self-experiences, without any modification of the sensitivity of the females antennae. No preference induction was found in the oligophagous and monophagous species. Our results suggest that lepidopteran stem borers may acquire preferences for new olfactory cues from the larval to the adult stage as described by Hopkins' host selection principle (HHSP), neo-Hopkins' principle, and the concept of 'chemical legacy.'
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0136169