The parasitoid complex associated with the herbivore<i>Hadena bicruris</i>(Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) on<i>Silene latifolia</i>(Caryophyllaceae) in the Netherlands

Elzinga, Jelmer A.; Zwakhals, Kees; Harvey, Jeffrey A.; Biere, Arjen

doi:10.1080/00222930601121668

Cited by 23 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…On average, for each larva that emerged from a primary infested fruit, another 1.92 ± 0.15 fruits were secondarily attacked on the same plant, with no significant differences between North American and European plants (nested anova , P continent > 0.1), also not after correcting for the negative correlation with average fruit size ( ancova , P continent > 0.1). The relatively low secondary attack rate may be explained by mortality induced by the parasitoid Bracon variator (Elzinga et al. 2007b) which we often observed in this experiment.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 54%

Enhanced frugivory on invasive Silene latifolia in its native range due to increased oviposition

Elzinga

Bernasconi

2009

Journal of Ecology

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Summary1. Why some species become invasive is a timely question in ecology. Most hypotheses assume that changed ecological interactions, especially enemy release, allow species to become invasive. This paper investigates how the release from a specialist frugivore may lead to relaxed selection on avoidance and defence strategies in an invasive plant. 2. Silene latifolia was introduced from Europe to North America where its main enemies are absent. Reintroduced North American plants suffer greater damage than European plants by their specialist frugivore Hadena bicruris, which lays eggs in flowers. However, the mechanism is unclear: increased oviposition preference, decreased defence leading to higher egg and larval survival, or a closer phenological match. 3. We exposed plants from European and North American populations to this enemy by allowing natural oviposition and also by manually adding eggs. We recorded reproductive traits potentially associated with interactions with the seed predator and monitored the different stages of fruit attack (oviposition, larval growth and survival) to study the relative roles of increased attractiveness versus decreased defence. 4. North American plants received significantly more eggs (40.2 ± 2.1 eggs per plant) than European plants (28.4 ± 3.0 eggs per plant) and natural fruit predation was twice as high on North American than on European plants. Oviposition preference rates for North American over European plants persisted also after variation in flower size and phenology were accounted for. 5. European and North American plants did not differ significantly in larval survival, larval mass at emergence or in the rate of defensive fruit abscission, indicating that greater susceptibility of plants from the introduced range to the seed predator is largely due to an increased preference for oviposition rather than to changes in palatability or defence after oviposition. 6. Synthesis. Our results are consistent with the idea that introduced plants may evolve after introduction, if evolutionary constraints such as those imposed by plant-frugivore interactions, are broken down in the invasive range. For S. latifolia, release from its native predator H. bicruris may have allowed evolution of increased attractiveness to pollinators without the burden of attracting the frugivore.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 54%

Enhanced frugivory on invasive Silene latifolia in its native range due to increased oviposition

Elzinga

Bernasconi

2009

Journal of Ecology

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“…Leaving earlier and at smaller size from the primary fruit implies increased risks, since the primary fruit grants protection from parasitoids (Awmack and Leather 2002;Benrey and Denno 1997;Biere et al 2002). At least 14 parasitoid species have been described from H. bicruris larvae (Elzinga et al 2007), most of which attack the larvae at instar L4 or L5 (Elzinga et al 2007). Lower larval survival as a consequence of fruit abortion may be reinforced by the fact that aborted fruits are dropped away from the plant, thus reducing the probability of secondary attack for other fruits on the same plant.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Larval development from eclosion to pupation lasts around 3-4 weeks and larvae need several fruits (three to five) to complete development. The moth is present from May to October in most (over 90% in a recent survey; Wolfe 2002) European populations, with two or more overlapping generations per year (Elzinga et al 2007), and high prevalence (i.e., often 50% or more of the fruits are attacked (Biere and Honders 1996;Elzinga et al 2005;Wolfe 2002). …”

Section: Study Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Benefits and costs to pollinating, seed-eating insects: the effect of flower size and fruit abortion on larval performance

2009

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Plant-pollinator interactions are well-known examples of mutualism, but are not free of antagonism. Antagonistic interactions and defenses or counter-defenses are expected particularly in nursery pollination. In these systems, adult insects, while pollinating, lay their eggs in flowers, and juveniles consume the seeds from one or several fruits, thereby substantially reducing plant fitness. The outcome of such interactions will depend, for the plant, on the balance between pollination versus seed predation and for the larvae on the balance between the food and shelter provided versus the costs imposed by plant defenses, e.g., through abortion of infested fruits. Here, we examine the costs and benefits to the larvae in the nurserypollination system Silene latifolia/Hadena bicruris. Using selection lines that varied in flower size (large-vs. smallflowered plants), we investigated the effects of variation in flower and fruit size and of a potential defense, fruit abortion, on larval performance. In this system, infested fruits are significantly more likely to be aborted than noninfested fruits; however, it is unclear whether fruit abortion is effective as a defense. Larger flowers gave rise to larger fruits with more seeds, and larvae that were heavier at emergence. Fruit abortion was frequently observed (ca. 40% of the infested fruits). From aborted fruits, larvae emerged earlier and were substantially lighter than larvae emerging from non-aborted fruits. The lower mass at emergence of larvae from aborted fruits indicates that abortion is a resistance mechanism. Assuming that lower larval mass implies fewer resources invested in the frugivore, these results also suggest that abortion is likely to benefit the plant as a defense mechanism, by limiting both resources invested in attacked fruits, as well as the risk of secondary attack. This suggests that selective fruit abortion may contribute to the stability of mutualism also in this non-obligate system.

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“…In gregarious parasitoids, superparasitism results in a scramble competition and the developing immatures have to share the limited resources of the host. In koinobiont parasitoids whose hosts continue to feed after parasitism, the relationship between number of progeny per host and adult size depends on the size of the host at parasitization and its capacity to compensate parasitoid growth through increased feeding (Harvey, 2000;Elzinga et al, 2007;Silva-Torres et al, 2009). Because some species of koinobiont endoparasitoids can regulate host growth according to the number of immatures developing in it, it is difficult to generalize the effects of superparasitism on offspring fitness.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Size-induced reproductive constraints in an egg parasitoid

Boivin

Martel

2012

Journal of Insect Physiology

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The parasitoid complex associated with the herbivoreHadena bicruris(Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) onSilene latifolia(Caryophyllaceae) in the Netherlands

Cited by 23 publications

References 45 publications

Enhanced frugivory on invasive Silene latifolia in its native range due to increased oviposition

Enhanced frugivory on invasive Silene latifolia in its native range due to increased oviposition

Benefits and costs to pollinating, seed-eating insects: the effect of flower size and fruit abortion on larval performance

Size-induced reproductive constraints in an egg parasitoid

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