Data from: The developmental race between maturing host plants and their butterfly herbivore – the influence of phenological matching and temperature

1. Interactions between herbivorous insects and their host plants that are
limited in time are widespread. Therefore, many insect–plant interactions
result in a developmental race, where herbivores need to complete their
development before plants become unsuitable, while plants strive to
minimize damage from herbivores by outgrowing them. 2. When spring
phenologies of interacting species change asymmetrically in response to
climate warming, there will be a change in the developmental state of host
plants at the time of insect herbivore emergence. In combination with
altered temperatures during the subsequent developmental period, this is
likely to affect interaction strength as well as fitness of interacting
species. 3. Here, we experimentally explore whether the combined effect of
phenological matching and thermal conditions influence the outcome of an
insect–host interaction. We manipulated both developmental stages of the
host plants at the start of the interaction and temperature during the
subsequent developmental period in a model system of a herbivorous
butterfly, Anthocharis cardamines, and five of its Brassicaceae host plant
species. 4. Larval performance characteristics were favoured by earlier
stages of host plants at oviposition as well as by higher developmental
temperatures on most of the host species. The probability of a larva
needing a second host plant covered the full range from no influence of
either phenological matching or temperature to strong effects of both
factors, and complex interactions between them. The probability of a plant
outgrowing a larva was dependent only on the species identity. 5. This
study demonstrates that climatic variation can influence the outcome of
consumer–resource interactions in multiple ways and that its effects
differ among host plant species. Therefore, climate warming is likely to
change the temporal match between larval and plant development in some
plant species, but not in the others. This is likely to have important
implications for host plant use and possibly influence competitive
relationships.