Influence of feeding-damaged plants on the oviposition responses within a community of female moths

Competitive or facilitative interactions characterise phytophagous insect communities that utilise the same resources. These interactions are often mediated by the host plant. Plant mediation influences the oviposition choices that a community of insects, sharing the same host plant make. In this context, the oviposition choices of females within a community of lepidopteran cereal stemborers namely Busseola fusca , Sesamia calamistis and Chilo partellus were studied in plant choice-experiments under laboratory and field conditions. Gravid females of each species were presented with a choice between maize plants infested by conspecific or heterospecific larvae and uninfested maize plants. The number of eggs and egg batches laid on plants were used to quantify oviposition. Results showed that none of the three stemborer species avoided oviposition on infested maize plants. In some cases a significant preference for infested maize plants were observed. Similarly, data from field trials under natural stemborer infestation, with B. fusca as the only species, showed that the wild ovipositing moths were not avoiding infested plants. Host plant mediation may influence the incidence of multi-species infestations by stemborer species often found in the field. The potential roles of herbivore-induced and egg-deposited-induced plant volatiles in this mechanism are discussed.