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Influence of feeding-damaged plants on the oviposition responses within a community of female moths

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Abstract

Competitive or facilitative interactions characterise phytophagous insect communities that utilise the same resources. These interactions are often mediated by the host plant. Plant mediation influences the oviposition choices that a community of insects, sharing the same host plant make. In this context, the oviposition choices of females within a community of lepidopteran cereal stemborers namely Busseola fusca, Sesamia calamistis and Chilo partellus were studied in plant choice-experiments under laboratory and field conditions. Gravid females of each species were presented with a choice between maize plants infested by conspecific or heterospecific larvae and uninfested maize plants. The number of eggs and egg batches laid on plants were used to quantify oviposition. Results showed that none of the three stemborer species avoided oviposition on infested maize plants. In some cases a significant preference for infested maize plants were observed. Similarly, data from field trials under natural stemborer infestation, with B. fusca as the only species, showed that the wild ovipositing moths were not avoiding infested plants. Host plant mediation may influence the incidence of multi-species infestations by stemborer species often found in the field. The potential roles of herbivore-induced and egg-deposited-induced plant volatiles in this mechanism are discussed.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency [Contribution no. 75000529], through the Capacity Building for Science Education and Research Cooperation in Africa (CBSERCA) project of the CB & ID programme of icipe. It was also supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland sponsorship through the Climate Change Impacts of Ecosystem Services and Food Security in Eastern Africa (CHIESA) project. We further acknowledge the technical assistance provided by staff of the IRD-NSBB project at icipe and also of the stemborer rearing unit of the ARCU-icipe for the rearing and supply of insect larvae for this experiment. We also thank Daisy Salifu of the Bio-Statistic unit of icipe, for the statistical guidance for this work. Finally, we are grateful to Fritz Schulthess for his reading to improve the manuscript.

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  1. International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe), P.O. Box 30772-00100, Nairobi, Kenya

    Eric Siaw Ntiri, Paul-Andre Calatayud, Boaz Musyoka & Bruno Pierre Le Ru

  2. IPM Program, Unit for Environmental Sciences and Management, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa

    Eric Siaw Ntiri & Johnnie Van den Berg

  3. UMR IRD 247 Laboratoire Evolution, Génomes, Comportement et Ecologie, Diversité, Ecologie et Evolution des Insectes Tropicaux, CNRS, 91198, Gif-sur-Yvette, Paris, France

    Paul-Andre Calatayud & Bruno Pierre Le Ru

  4. Université de Paris-Sud, 91405, Orsay, Paris, France

    Paul-Andre Calatayud & Bruno Pierre Le Ru

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  1. Eric Siaw Ntiri
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ESN, PAC and BPL conceived research.

ESN and BM conducted experiments.

ESN analysed data and conducted statistical analyses.

ESN, PAC BM, JVDB and BPL contributed to writing of manuscript.

BPL secured funding.

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Ntiri, E.S., Calatayud, PA., Musyoka, B. et al. Influence of feeding-damaged plants on the oviposition responses within a community of female moths. Phytoparasitica 46, 607–615 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12600-018-0695-1

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