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ViewAttendees 11

10-Minute Paper

Plant-Insect Ecosystems

P-IE: Ecology

Understanding the scope of diet breadth in a generalist herbivore

Sunday, November 5, 2023
4:54 PM – 5:06 PM ET
Location: Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, National Harbor 10
In-Person
Diet breadth of insect herbivores has been studied for decades, yet it is still unclear why over 90% of insect herbivores are dietary specialists. While only 10% of insect herbivores are considered dietary generalists, the number may be lower if these species are generalists at a population level but are specialists at the individual scale. To understand the evolutionary forces that drive specialism and generalism, it is important to examine species with variable diet breadth. To establish the level of generalism in a dietary generalist species, we examined dimorphic populations of fall webworm (hereafter FW), where larval head capsule color (red or black) also corresponds to a difference in diet breadth (relatively restricted for red and broad for black). Thus, we are able to examine diet breadth along a continuum across different geographic locations where either red FW exist independent of black (Colorado), both morphotypes co-occur but are separated temporally (Maryland), or where the morphotypes interbreed (Massachusetts). To examine diet breadth at each region, we split maternal lines from each location onto four local host plants used in varying degrees by FW and reared each maternal line in the lab. We examined differences in performance by measuring survival, development time, and pupal mass by maternal line and host across the three locations. We found that host plants and maternal lines affected FW performance across sites. Our research will be important for understanding the evolutionary forces that drive specialization and maintain generalism in insect herbivores.