Adult nutritional stress decreases oviposition choosiness and fecundity in female butterflies

Despite the benefits of careful decision-making, not all animals are choosy. One explanation is that choosiness can cost time and energy and thus depend on nutrition. However, it is not clear how allocation to choosiness versus other components of life history shifts in the face of nutritional stress. We tested two hypotheses about the effects of nutritional stress on choosiness and other life history traits: 1) poor nutrition leads to compensatory shifts in life history strategy towards greater investment per offspring in terms of choosy oviposition behavior and egg resources, and 2) poor nutrition negatively affects a range of life history traits. Cabbage white butterfly (Pieris rapae) females were reared under low or high nutrition conditions during the larval and adult stage in a fully factorial design. Choosiness was quantified as avoidance of conspecific models during oviposition. Adult life history traits included egg number, egg size, and thorax protein. Females that experienced...

尽管谨慎决策益处良多，但并非所有动物都具有选择偏好（choosiness）。一种解释是，选择偏好会消耗时间与能量，因此依赖于营养状况。然而，在营养压力下，资源在选择偏好与生活史其他组分之间的分配如何变化尚不清楚。我们测试了关于营养压力对选择偏好及其他生活史性状（life history traits）影响的两个假设：1）营养不良会导致生活史策略发生补偿性转变，即在选择性产卵行为（oviposition behavior）和卵资源方面增加对每个后代的投入；2）营养不良对一系列生活史性状产生负面影响。我们采用完全析因设计（fully factorial design），在幼虫期和成虫期将菜粉蝶（*Pieris rapae*）雌蝶饲养于低营养或高营养条件下。选择偏好通过产卵期间对同种模型（conspecific models）的回避程度来量化。成虫生活史性状包括产卵数量、卵大小及胸部蛋白质（thorax protein）含量。雌蝶若经历...