We Are What We Eat : A Stoichiometric and Ecometabolomic Study of Caterpillars Feeding on Two Pine Subspecies of Pinus sylvestris
Rivas-Ubach, Albert (Centre de Recerca Ecològica i d'Aplicacions Forestals)
Peñuelas, Josep (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Biologia Animal, de Biologia Vegetal i d'Ecologia)
Hódar, José Antonio (Universidad de Granada. Departamento de Biología Animal y Ecología)
Oravec, Michal (Czech Academy of Sciences. Global Change Research Institute)
Paša-Tolić, Ljiljana (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory)
Urban, Otmar (Czech Academy of Sciences. Global Change Research Institute)
Sardans i Galobart, Jordi (Centre de Recerca Ecològica i d'Aplicacions Forestals)

Date:	2019
Abstract:	Many studies have addressed several plant-insect interaction topics at nutritional, molecular, physiological, and evolutionary levels. However, it is still unknown how flexible the metabolism and the nutritional content of specialist insect herbivores feeding on different closely related plants can be. We performed elemental, stoichiometric, and metabolomics analyses on leaves of two coexisting Pinus sylvestris subspecies and on their main insect herbivore; the caterpillar of the processionary moth (Thaumetopoea pityocampa). Caterpillars feeding on different pine subspecies had distinct overall metabolome structure, accounting for over 10% of the total variability. Although plants and insects have very divergent metabolomes, caterpillars showed certain resemblance to their plant-host metabolome. In addition, few plant-related secondary metabolites were found accumulated in caterpillar tissues which could potentially be used for self-defense. Caterpillars feeding on N and P richer needles had lower N and P tissue concentration and higher C:N and C:P ratios, suggesting that nutrient transfer is not necessarily linear through trophic levels and other plant-metabolic factors could be interfering. This exploratory study showed that little chemical differences between plant food sources can impact the overall metabolome of specialist insect herbivores. Significant nutritional shifts in herbivore tissues could lead to larger changes of the trophic web structure.
Grants:	European Commission 610028 Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad CGL2016-48074-P Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2014/SGR-274
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Plant-insect ; Metabolomics ; Stoichiometry ; Processionary moth ; Scots pine ; Secondary metabolites ; Herbivory
Published in:	International journal of molecular sciences, Vol. 20, Núm. 1 (January 2019) , art. 59, ISSN 1422-0067

DOI: 10.3390/ijms20010059
PMID: 30586850

19 p, 5.0 MB

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Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > CREAF (Centre de Recerca Ecològica i d'Aplicacions Forestals) > Imbalance-P
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