We Are What We Eat: A Stoichiometric and Ecometabolomic Study of Caterpillars Feeding on Two Pine Subspecies of Pinus sylvestris.

ABSTRACT: Many studies have addressed several plant-insect interaction topics at nutritional, molecular, physiological, and evolutionary levels. However, it is still unknown how flexible the metabolism and the nutritional content of specialist insect herbivores feeding on different closely related plants can be. We performed elemental, stoichiometric, and metabolomics analyses on leaves of two coexisting Pinus sylvestris subspecies and on their main insect herbivore; the caterpillar of the processionary moth (Thaumetopoea pityocampa). Caterpillars feeding on different pine subspecies had distinct overall metabolome structure, accounting for over 10% of the total variability. Although plants and insects have very divergent metabolomes, caterpillars showed certain resemblance to their plant-host metab

SUBMITTER: Rivas-Ubach A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6337320 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature