Quantifying the effects of host discrimination on egg-laying decision of the cowpea seed beetle, Callosobruchus maculatus

Many parasitic and endophagous insect species are capable of discriminating among the quality of their hosts. However, there is no appropriate way to quantify their discrimination performance. In this study, we quantified how oviposition of the cowpea seed beetle, Callosobruchus maculatus (Fabricius...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Entomologia experimentalis et applicata 2008-12, Vol.129 (3), p.325-331
Main Authors: Yang, R.-L, Fushing, H
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal and plant ecology
Animal ethology
Animal, plant and microbial ecology
Animals
Autoecology
Biological and medical sciences
Bruchidae
Callosobruchus maculatus
Coleoptera
discrimination performance
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
oviposition
Protozoa. Invertebrata
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
quantitative behavior
resource heterogeneity
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Summary:Many parasitic and endophagous insect species are capable of discriminating among the quality of their hosts. However, there is no appropriate way to quantify their discrimination performance. In this study, we quantified how oviposition of the cowpea seed beetle, Callosobruchus maculatus (Fabricius) (Coleoptera: Bruchidae), was affected by the relative contributions of both egg number and host size discrimination. The effect of egg density and resource heterogeneity on these discrimination performances was also explored. Egg-distribution predictions were made by combining time-dependent available resource fitness (egg discrimination) and host weight factors (size discrimination). The χ² test was then used for goodness-of-fit testing. The effects of both egg and size discrimination on oviposition in environments with different levels of resource heterogeneity were compared. It was found that host size, rather than the number of eggs on the host, plays a larger role in the egg-laying decision for most individual seed beetles, especially when egg density is high. Host size discrimination behavior was reinforced when the beetles experienced increasing resource heterogeneity, but the performance might reach a plateau. This is the first quantitative evaluation of the effect of host discrimination on egg-laying decisions of seed beetles.
ISSN:0013-8703
1570-7458
DOI:10.1111/j.1570-7458.2008.00779.x