Population-specific responses of an insect herbivore to variation in host-plant quality.

ABSTRACT: Anthropogenic climate change poses a substantial challenge to many organisms, to which they need to respond to avoid fitness reductions. Investigating responses to environmental change is particularly interesting in herbivores, as they are potentially affected by indirect effects mediated via variation in host-plant quality. We here use the herbivorous insect Pieris napi to investigate geographic variation in the response to variation in food quality. We performed a common garden experiment using replicated populations from Germany and Italy, and manipulated host quality by growing host plants at different temperature and water regimes. We found that feeding on plants grown at a higher temperature generally diminished the performance of P. napi, evidenced by a prolonge

SUBMITTER: Kuczyk J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8717263 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature