Low sodium availability in hydroponically manipulated host plants promotes cannibalism in a lepidopteran herbivore.

ABSTRACT: As an abundant element in the Earth's crust, sodium plays an unusual role in food webs. Its availability in terrestrial environments is highly variable, but it is nonessential for most plants, yet essential for animals and most decomposers. Accordingly, sodium requirements are important drivers of various animal behavioural patterns and performance levels. To specifically test whether sodium limitation increases cannibalism in a gregarious lepidopteran herbivore, we hydroponically manipulated Helianthus annuus host plants' tissue-sodium concentrations. Gregarious larvae of the bordered patch butterfly, Chlosyne lacinia, cannibalized siblings when plant-tissue sodium concentrations were low in two separate experiments. Although cannibalism was almost non-existent when sodium concentrations

SUBMITTER: Santiago-Rosario LY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10682487 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature