Butterfly host plant use driven by microclimate not nutritional quality

The abundance of insect herbivores often depends on host plant suitability for their specialised immature stages. Suitability can be strongly influenced by both microclimate and the nutritional quality of the plants themselves. Where soil nitrogen is high, host plants tend to have high nutritional quality, but vigorous growth of surrounding vegetation reduces microclimatic temperatures. Thus, thermophilous insects may face a choice between host plants with optimal microclimates and those with optimal nutritional quality. We investigated how microclimate and nitrogen content influence oviposition choices by the declining Small Copper butterfly, Lycaena phlaeas, on its host plant, Rumex acetosa. We predicted that warmer plants would have lower nitrogen content, and that butterflies would choose cooler, high-nitrogen plants during warmer ambient conditions. Although warmer R. acetosa plants had lower nitrogen content, L. phlaeas consistently chose to lay eggs on plants in warm microclimate..., , # Butterfly host plant use driven by microclimate not nutritional quality

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.hqbzkh1wk](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.hqbzkh1wk)

## Description of the data and file structure

Data collected to support investigations into the role of microclimate around host plants and nutritional quality of host plants in shaping oviposition by a specialist herbivorous butterfly.  Each row in the dataset is a host plant, either a plant with one or more eggs or larvae (plant_id contains 'e') or a control plant next to an occupied plant (in a randomly selected direction) (plant_id contains 'c'). 

There are two datasets, one smaller dataset (plant chemistry data) which contains chemical data for a sample of host plants along with data on possible proxies for this chemical data. This data was used to identify the best proxies for host nutritional quality (nitrogen content).

The second larger dataset was then used for all further analyses. It contains data about host plant chemi...,