Host selection by Manduca sexta

DOI

Oviposition choice in insects can be influenced by information acquired from visual, olfactory, and gustatory cues. Most studies focusing on oviposition in lepidopterans have examined the insect’s evaluation of plant suitability, the resulting subsequent plant acceptance or rejection, and learning from oviposition experience. Especially studies on oviposition learning suggest that experienced moths might exhibit oviposition constancy, i.e. despite naïve moths being generalists, they finally lay most of their eggs on a host they have already experienced. However, whether and how these insects transition between different host species remains poorly explored. Here, we investigated the tobacco hawkmoth, Manduca sexta, with two well-known hosts (Solanaceae) and a less studied one (Martyniaceae). When investigating their oviposition behavior in wind-tunnel and semi-natural tent assays, we observed that hawkmoths revisit both individual leaves in the wind tunnel and plant clusters in the tents several times before they search for another host. Such revisitation behavior might be mediated by learning, i.e., an immediate increase in preference for a given plant species after having experienced it. This was consistent with our finding that when the moths in the tent moved from a cluster of plants of one species to another cluster, they often targeted clusters of the same species again. It suggests that hawkmoths indeed display some kind of oviposition constancy. However, as the moths, every now and then, also target novel hosts they still seem to avoid putting all eggs into one basket.

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.17617/3.RDWGHP
Metadata Access https://edmond.mpg.de/api/datasets/export?exporter=dataverse_json&persistentId=doi:10.17617/3.RDWGHP
Provenance
Creator Briceno Aguilar, Eduardo
Publisher Edmond
Publication Year 2025
OpenAccess true
Contact eaguilar(at)ice.mpg.de
Representation
Language English
Resource Type Dataset
Version 1
Discipline Other