Data from: Sensory deficiencies affect resources selection and associational effects at two spatial scales

Many insect species have limited sensory abilities and may not be able to perceive the quality of different types of resources while approaching patchily distributed resources. These restrictions may lead to differences in selection rates between separate patches and between different resource types within a patch, which may have consequences for associational effects between resources. In this study, we used an oviposition assay containing different frequencies of apple and banana substrates divided over two patches to compare resource selection rates of wild type Drosophila melanogaster at the between and within patch scales. Next, we compared the wild type behavior with that of the olfactory deficient strain Orco2, and the gustatory deficient strain PoxnΔM22-B5 and found comparable responses to patch heterogeneity and similarly strong selection rates for apple at both scales for the wild type and olfactory deficient flies. Their oviposition behavior translated into associational susceptibility for apple and associational resistance for banana. The gustatory deficient flies, on the other hand, no longer had a strong selection rate for apple, strongly differed in between and within patch selection rates from the wild type flies, and caused no associational effects between the resources. Our study suggests that differences in sensory capabilities can affect resource selection at different search behavior scales in different ways, and in turn underlie associational effects between resources at different spatial scales.

多数昆虫物种的感官能力有限，在接近呈斑块状分布的资源时，往往无法甄别不同类型资源的品质差异。这类感官限制会导致不同斑块间以及斑块内不同资源类型间的资源选择率出现差异，进而对资源间的关联效应产生影响。本研究采用包含不同占比苹果与香蕉基质的产卵测定实验，该实验将基质分为两个斑块，以此在斑块间与斑块内两个尺度下，对比野生型黑腹果蝇（Drosophila melanogaster）的资源选择率。随后，我们将野生型果蝇的行为与嗅觉缺陷品系Orco2、味觉缺陷品系PoxnΔM22-B5的行为进行对比，结果发现野生型与嗅觉缺陷型果蝇对斑块异质性的响应模式相近，且在两个尺度下均表现出对苹果基质极强的选择率。二者的产卵行为最终表现为苹果基质的关联易感效应与香蕉基质的关联抗性效应。而味觉缺陷型果蝇则不再表现出对苹果基质的强选择率，其斑块间与斑块内的资源选择率与野生型果蝇存在显著差异，且未引发资源间的关联效应。本研究表明，感官能力的差异会以不同方式影响不同搜寻行为尺度下的资源选择，进而成为不同空间尺度下资源间关联效应的潜在成因。