Feeding behavior of Emphasis Type="Italic"Helico

Authors: Ábner ElpinoCampos

Publish Date: 2011/10/21

Volume: 15, Issue: 1, Pages: 107-118

PDF Link

Abstract

Of the 15 species of passion vines recorded for the Rio Grande do Sul State Brazil nine are used by Heliconius erato phyllis Fabricius 1775 The larvae of this species feed preferentially on Passiflora misera HBK which confers greater performance despite presenting smaller amounts of nutrients than other host plants Thus the performance associated with the consumption of a passion vine is possibly related not only to its nutritional content but also to the morphological and behavioral mechanisms involved in the feeding In this study the difficulties in accessing food imposed by the hosts P misera Passiflora suberosa L Passiflora caerulea L Passiflora edulis Sims and Passiflora alata Dryand were evaluated Focal observations were performed every 2 min during 6h sessions sequential sampling and the relative time spent for different behaviors resting feeding walking tasting and vein cutting was quantified on both young and old leaves Larvae devoted more time feeding on P misera in most cases Larvae observed on P alata devoted more to time resting and less time feeding performing one or two meals of small duration every 6 h First instar caterpillars on old leaves of P suberosa and P caerulea spent more time walking searching for a favorable feeding site The hardness of leaves may be a limiting factor for the initial instars in this heliconianI am thankful to Nice Shindo for helping in revising the first English version to Simone Mundstock Jahnke PhD Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul UFRGS and the two anonymous referees for the valuable comments on the manuscript to Gilson Moreira PhD of Laboratory of Morphology and Behavior of Insects LMCI–UFRGS for supporting this research and to Ana Kristina Silva Danessa Boligon Darli Massardo and Denis Silva for the help during the laboratory and insectary work and to Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior CAPES for the financial support This manuscript is contribution number 560 of the Zoology Department UFRGS

Keywords: