Plant water limitation and its impact on the oviposition preferences of the monarch butterfly (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae).

ABSTRACT: Intensifying drought conditions across the western United States due to global climate change are altering plant-insect interactions. Specialist herbivores must find their host plants within a matrix of nonhosts, and thus often rely upon specific plant secondary chemistry for host location and oviposition cues. Climate-induced alterations to plant chemistry could thus affect female selection of larval food plants. Here, we investigated whether host-plant water limitation influenced oviposition preference in a threatened invertebrate: the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus). We found that females deposited more eggs on reduced-water than on well-watered narrowleaf milkweed plants (Asclepias fascicularis), but we could not attribute this change to any specific change in plant chemistry. Spe

SUBMITTER: Diethelm AC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10430791 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature