Date of Award
Spring 6-13-2025
Document Type
Masters Thesis
Degree Name
M.S. in Biological Sciences
Organizational Unit
College of Natural Science and Mathematics, Biological Sciences
First Advisor
Shannon M. Murphy
Second Advisor
Erica Larson
Third Advisor
Jonathan Velotta
Copyright Statement / License for Reuse
All Rights Reserved.
Keywords
Fall webworm, Host plant, Lepidoptera, Parental care, Preference test
Abstract
Parents can provide care to their offspring to increase their offspring’s chance of survival, but the importance of host choice for different parental care mechanisms vary. There are various types of parental care across insect taxa, including maternal investment or choosing an optimal oviposition site for offspring. Using an extreme dietary generalist insect, fall webworm (FW, Hyphantria cunea), we investigated if females provision different amounts of lipids into their eggs depending on the diet they fed upon as larvae. We then tested for oviposition preferences in female FW to see if females preferred to oviposit on their natal host plant, as predicted by the Hopkins’ host selection principle.
Copyright Date
6-2025
Publication Statement
Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.
Rights Holder
Emma J. Sellers
Provenance
Received from ProQuest
File Format
application/pdf
Language
English (eng)
Extent
62 pgs
File Size
1.1 MB
Recommended Citation
Sellers, Emma J., "The Importance of Host Choice in a Generalist Herbivore" (2025). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 2603.
https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/2603