Dissertation Research: Measuring the Fitness Consequences of Host Plant selection: Rothschildia Lebeau (Lepidoptera: Saturniidae) in Costa Rican Tropical Dry Forest

许多蝴蝶和蛾子(鳞翅目)直接在它们毛虫的食物植物上产卵，毛虫必须在那里完成它们的发育。成年雌性对食物植物的选择对其幼虫的生长、发育和存活有什么影响，从而对其预期的健康状况有什么影响？研究人员的目标是为哥斯达黎加西北部瓜纳卡斯特地区热带干燥森林中的巨型野生丝蛾Rothschildia LeBeau(鳞翅目：土蛾科)回答这个问题。调查人员将跟踪一群毛毛虫，从孵化到成年。毛虫将被试验性地放置在森林中的单个食物植物上，以测量毛虫在自然条件下在不同种类的食物植物上的生长、发育和存活。这些实验将在不同的栖息地、季节和年份重复进行。这项研究将有助于我们了解食草性昆虫在自然界中经历的食物植物“质量”的自然变化范围，并反过来揭示捕食不同物种对毛虫的影响。广泛的影响：近25年来，ACG一直是成虫和蝴蝶及其毛虫的密集生物多样性清单的所在地。这份清单产生了丰富的自然历史和分类信息，为无数解决植物-昆虫研究领域核心问题的生态学研究提供了机会。这就是一项这样的研究。随着ACG的生物多样性项目增加了这项研究和其他生态研究的价值，这些相同的生态研究也通过增加生物多样性项目和它们所在的受保护荒地的价值来回报。

Many butterflies and moths (Lepidoptera) lay their eggs directly on their caterpillar's food plants and the caterpillars must complete their development there. What effect does the choice of food plant by the adult female have on the growth, development, and survival of her caterpillars and, therefore, on her expected fitness? The investigators' goal is to answer this question for the giant wild silk moth Rothschildia lebeau (Lepidoptera: Saturniidae) in the tropical dry forest of the Area de Conservacion Guanacaste (ACG), in northwestern Costa Rica. The investigators will follow cohorts of caterpillars from hatching to adulthood. The caterpillars will be placed experimentally on individual food plants in the forest in order to measure caterpillar growth, development, and survival on different species of food plants under natural conditions. These experiments will be repeated in different habitats, seasons, and years. This study will contribute to our basic knowledge about the natural range of variation in food plant "quality" experienced by herbivorous insects in nature and, in turn, it will reveal the consequences to the caterpillar of eating distinct species.Broader Impacts: For nearly 25 years, the ACG has been the site of an intensive biodiversity inventory of adult moths and butterflies and their caterpillars. This inventory has produced a wealth of natural history and taxonomic information, which presents opportunities for countless ecological studies that address core questions in the field of plant-insect research. This is one such study. As the ACG's biodiversity projects increase the value of this and other ecological studies, these same ecological studies reciprocate by increasing the value of the biodiversity projects and the conserved wildland in which they occur.