1. Plant defence of Viburnum shrubs against oviposition by its specialist herbivore, the viburnum leaf beetle [VLB Pyrrhalta viburni(Paykull)], involves an egg-crushing wound response in twigs. Although the response is variable among Viburnum species, it can have a strong impact on egg survivorship. Beetles typically aggregate egg masses with conspecifics along infested twigs, forming clusters ...

The waste artificial larval rearing media of New World screwworms, Cochliomyia hominivorax (Coquerel) were evaluated to determine their effectiveness as oviposition attractants. Various concentrations of waste larval media resulting from rearing screwworm larvae in gel and cellulose fiber-based artificial diets tested over a 4-wk period attracted varying number of gravid screwworm flies to ovip...

Th e preference–performance hypothesis predicts that when female herbivorous insects determine where to position off spring of low mobility, they will select sites that maximize development and survival of those off spring. How this critical relationship responds to variation in climatic and habitat conditions remains untested, however, despite its important consequences for population and evol...

Location and selection of an oviposition site is an essential part of the life history of all mosquito species. The remarkable number of oviposition be­ haviors range from the common, e.g. deposition of eggs on or near the water surface, to the unusual, e.g. egg brooding by adult females (73, 74). The initiation of an ovipositional flight is linked with environmental factors, especially rainfal...

An intravenous injection of arginine vasotocin (AVT) at 16 h before the expected oviposition of the initial egg of an egg-laying sequence caused bearing down for oviposition. Oviposition was increased up to 100% by increasing the dose of AVT up to 1 microg, but it decreased when the dose was 10 and 20 microg. Bearing down was observed even when the oviposition was not induced by the injection o...

Oviposition is a major event in the life history of mosquitoes, shaping both individual fitness and vectorial capacity. Several exogenous factors have been shown as important for the dynamic forcing of oviposition at finely (hourly) and coarsely (monthly or season to season) grained temporal scales. However, field studies addressing the interplay of weather factors on oviposition dynamics at th...

IntraspeciÞc geographic variation in morphology and behavior can be indicative of populations that are adapted to local environmental conditions. Heterogeneity in the abiotic environment, such as soil conditions, can be an important driver of local adaptation. In southFlorida,mean body sizes in populations of the lubber grasshopper Romalea microptera (Beauvois) (Orthoptera: Acrididae), increase...

Selection of oviposition sites by gravid females is a critical behavioral step in the reproductive cycle of Anopheles coluzzii, which is one of the principal Afrotropical malaria vector mosquitoes. Several studies suggest this decision is mediated by semiochemicals associated with potential oviposition sites. To better understand the chemosensory basis of this behavior and identify compounds th...

Infections can have detrimental effects on the fitness of an animal. Reproducing females may therefore be sensitive to cues of infection and be able to adaptively change their oviposition strategy in the face of infection. As one possibility, females could make a terminal investment and shift reproductive effort from future to current reproduction as life expectancy decreases. We hypothesized t...

Suboptimal larval habitats modulate oviposition of the malaria vector mosquito Anopheles gambiae s.s.. CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license peer-reviewed) is the author/funder. It is made available under a The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not. Abstract Selection of oviposition sites by gravid females is a critical behavioural preference in the reproductive cycle of Anopheles g...