Plant Glucosinolate Content and Host-Plant Preference and Suitability in the Small White Butterfly (Lepidoptera: Pieridae) and Comparison with Another Specialist Lepidopteran
2023
Francisco Rubén Badenes-Pérez
Glucosinolates are used in host-plant recognition by insects specialized on Brassicaceae, such as <i>Pieris rapae</i> L. (Lepidoptera: Pieridae). This research investigated the association between <i>P. rapae</i> oviposition and larval survival and host-plant glucosinolate content using 17 plant species in which glucosinolate content had previously been determined. Two-choice oviposition tests (comparing each plant species to <i>Arabidopsis thaliana</i> L.) and larval survival experiments showed that indolic glucosinolate content had a positive effect on oviposition preference and larval survival in <i>P. rapae</i>. In the host plants tested, the effects of indolic glucosinolates on oviposition preference and of glucosinolate complexity index and aliphatic glucosinolates without sulfur-containing side chains on total oviposition were smaller on <i>P. rapae</i> than on <i>Plutella xylostella</i> L. (Lepidoptera: Plutellidae), another lepidopteran specialized on glucosinolate-containing plants. This study suggests that high indolic glucosinolate content could make crop plants more susceptible to both <i>P. rapae</i> and <i>P. xylostella</i>, but this effect seems to be greater for <i>P. xylostella</i>. Additionally, as some differences in oviposition and larval survival between <i>P. rapae</i> and <i>P. xylostella</i> occurred in some individual plants, it cannot be concluded that bottom-up factors are always similar in these two specialist insects.
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