Dietary cardenolides enhance growth and change the direction of the fecundity-longevity trade-off in milkweed bugs (Heteroptera: Lygaeinae).

ABSTRACT: Sequestration, that is, the accumulation of plant toxins into body tissues for defense, was predicted to incur physiological costs and may require resistance traits different from those of non-sequestering insects. Alternatively, sequestering species could experience a cost in the absence of toxins due to selection on physiological homeostasis under permanent exposure of sequestered toxins in body tissues. Milkweed bugs (Heteroptera: Lygaeinae) sequester high amounts of plant-derived cardenolides. Although being potent inhibitors of the ubiquitous animal enzyme Na⁺/K⁺-ATPase, milkweed bugs can tolerate cardenolides by means of resistant Na⁺/K⁺-ATPases. Both adaptations, resistance and sequestration, are ancestral traits of the Lygaeinae. Using fo

SUBMITTER: Pokharel P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8717354 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature