Chemical Defense as a Condition-Dependent Trait in Harvestmen

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• 作者：Taís M. Nazareth ; Daniela B. Sudatti ; Glauco Machado
• 关键词：Benzoquinone ; Costs ; Dietary restriction ; Food availability ; Parental care ; Arachnida ; Opiliones
• 刊名：Journal of Chemical Ecology
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：October 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：42
• 期：10
• 页码：1047-1051
• 全文大小：
• 刊物主题：Ecology; Biochemistry, general; Entomology; Biological Microscopy; Agriculture;
• 出版者：Springer US
• ISSN：1573-1561
• 卷排序：42

文摘

The expression of costly traits often depends on the amount of food available to the individuals. Chemical defenses are costly, thus their production should be condition-dependent. Here, we tested the hypothesis that an increase in food availability and an acetate-supplemented diet will increase the production of chemical defenses by the harvestman Magnispina neptunus, which releases alkylated benzoquinones biosynthesized using acetate as a precursor. We manipulated the diet of the individuals and created four experimental groups: well-fed with acetate, well-fed without acetate, poorly-fed with acetate, and poorly-fed without acetate. Well-fed individuals produced secretions with higher mass and concentration of benzoquinones than poorly-fed individuals, but we detected no significant effect of the acetate supplement. Thus, the production of benzoquinones is condition-dependent, and even short periods of dietary restriction may make individuals more vulnerable to predators, imposing fitness consequences to chemically-protected arthropods that biosynthesize their own defensive compounds.