Saturniidae) Larvae on Various Plant Species
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212 JOURNAL OF THE LEPIDOPTERISTS' SOCIETY FEEDING AND SURVIVAL OF CECROPIA (SATURNIIDAE) LARVAE ON VARIOUS PLANT SPECIES A. G. SCARBROUGH Department of Biology, Towson State College, Baltimore, ~1aryland 21204 AND G. P. WALDBAUER AND J. G. STERNBURG Department of Entomology, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801 During the course of our studies of the cecropia moth, Hyalophora cecropia (L.), we found a large proportion of cocoons in low shrubs. We suspected that many of these shrubs, particularly species of Juniperus and Taxus, do not support larval growth, and that the presence of cocoons on them is evidence that pre-spinning larvae wandered to them from the foodplant. Most of the shrubs in question are not included on published lists of the hostplants of cecropia, but since this does not prove that cecropia larvae could not feed on them, we made the feeding trials described below. There is some doubt as to whether or not all of the species on the published "foodplant lists" of cecropia are actually eaten by cecropia larvae. Brodie's (1882) list is reliable since he included only plants on which larvae had been found feeding in the field. On the other hand, Marsh's (1937) list is of dubious value since he included plants on which he had found cocoons but had not seen larvae. Tietz (1958) compiled a long list, but, unfortunately, did not state the evidence upon which the plants were included. MA TERIALS AND METHODS Most cocoons were collected in residential areas, principally in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana, Illinois, although a few were found in nearby small towns. A small number came from rural areas, mostly from ditch banks, railroad rights-of-way, roadsides and fence rows. The larvae used in feeding trials were the progeny of wild parents which had been collected as described above. After mating in the laboratory, females were placed in large paper bags where they ovi posited. Before hatching occurred, small bits of paper bearing the eggs were snipped out and transferred to petri dishes. The unfed first instars used in the first series of tests were indiscriminately selected within a VOLUME 28, NUMBER 3 213 half-hour of hatching. The partly grown larvae used in the second series were indiscriminately selected from groups of larvae reared in nylon mesh sleeves on apple trees (Malus pumila) essentially as described by Telfer (1967). Plants of 118 species were tested for their ability to support the growth of first ins tar larvae. Each species was tested with at least three replicates. Species on which no larvae survived the first stadium in the initial test were retested with an additional three replicates. Each replicate con sisted of ten larvae confined with foliage in a 10 cm petri dish lined with a disc of moist filter paper. The newly hatched larvae were weighed in groups of ten and immediately placed in the dishes. Undamaged foliage, collected daily from plants growing in full sunlight, was sealed in plastic bags and stored in a refrigerator until used later the same day. The dishes were kept under constant illumination and at a temperature of 23 ± 1°C. At least once a day fresh food was added, and dead larvae, left over food, and feces were removed. Feces were dried im mediately, and eventually the aggregate for each replicate was redried to a constant weight at 100° C (see Waldbauer, 1964) . This weight was divided by the sum of the number of larvae feeding on each test day to yield the mean dry weight of feces passed per larva per day. Larvae were weighed and considered to have survived the stadium as soon as they had spun a molting pad. Dishes with moist filter paper but no food, and dishes with Acer saccharinum foliage served as negative and positive controls respectively. A group of tests was started on each of three days. Each group had its own controls, but since the controls differed by very little they have been lumped in Table 2. A few plants were also tested with two groups of partly grown larvae. Each group consisted of five larvae confined in a sleeve on a branch of a living plant in the field. They were transferred to the test plant from apple foliage, one group just before the molt to the fifth stadium and the other on the seventh day of the fifth stadium. Apple branches with leaves served as positive controls, and defoliated branches of the test plant as negative controls. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Table 1 lists the plants on which we found 10/0 or more of the cocoons collected during this study. Almost all of the cocoons from rural areas were on Salix interior, a shrubby willow which grows wild on ditch banks and in other moist places, but is not planted in urban areas. A few of the other listed species grow wild in this area, but with few 214 JOURNAL OF THE LEPIDOPTERISTS' SOCIETY TABLE l. The location of cecropia cocoons found during the collecting seasons of 1967-68, 1968-69 and 1969-70. Only those plants on which 10/0 or more of the total was found are named. Species which do not serve as food plants for cecropia are marked with an asterisk. Cocoons Found Locations Number % of total Acer saccharinum L. 1,074 34.8 * Juniperus spp. 278 9.0 Salix interior Rowlee 254 8.2 Betula pendula Roth. 168 5.4 Acer rubrum L. 136 4.4 Rhamnus frangula L. 132t 4.3 Malus spp. (Including pumila) 127 4.1 * Ligustrum vu.lgare L. 115 3.7 *Taxus media Rehd. 102 3.3 Betula populifolia Marsh. 90 2.9 Platanus occidentalis L. 66 2.1 Betula papyrifera Marsh. 52 1.7 Comus stolonifera Michx. and C. alba L. 46t 1.5 *Euonymus spp. (not alatu~) 38 1.2 Other plants 355 1l.5 Fences and buildings 51 1.7 3,084 99.8 t See text. exceptions we found cocoons only on cultivated specimens in urban areas. The data of Table 1 do not reflect the importance to cecropia in this area of Rhamnus frangula and the two species of Comus. In an earlier study (Waldbauer & Sternburg, 1967) we found cocoons abundantly on Comus stolonifera and C. alba. However, during the present study we did little collecting from Comus because most plants of these species in this area were included in another study of cecropia. R. frangula was formerly scarce in this area, but has become a popular hedge plant since we began our studies of cecropia in 1965; the great majority of cocoons from R. frangula were collected during the last year of the present study. Over 120/0 of the cocoons were found on shrubby conifers, Juniperus spp. and Taxus media, but only if these conifers were close to trees, particularly Acer saccharinum and Betula spp., which are important foodplants of cecropia in this area. We hypothesized that the larvae do not feed on these conifers, but migrate to them from their foodplants when they are ready to spin cocoons. The observations recorded below VOLUME 28, NUMBER 3 215 TABLE 2. Survival, growth and feces production of first instar cecropia larvae on the leaves of various woody plants. All plants were tested with three replicates of ten larvae each except those marked with an asterisk, which were tested with six replicates of ten each, and A. saccharinum and moist filter paper which were tested with 9 replicates of ten each. Duration of Mg fresh Mg dry feces/ ins tar (days) weight gained larva/day % Plants Survival Mean Range Mean Range Mean Range Plants listed in Table I Acer rubrum L. 96.6 6.0 6.0-6.0 224 217-242 39.5 37.9-41.0 A. saccharinum L. 95.0 6.3 5.0-7.0 202 167-233 33.6 30.0-38.9 Betula papyrifera Marsh. 83.3 3.8 3.5-4.0 329 309-345 39.9 34.1-44.2 B. pendula Roth. 90.0 4.6 4.5-5.0 358 336-395 32.6 24.8-36.8 Comus alba L. 93.3 4.3 4.0-5.0 235 193-263 16.5 12.8-18.7 C. stoloni/era Michx. 96.6 4.6 4.0-5.5 237 216-276 20.3 20.0-22.8 Euonymus alatus Sieb. 90.0 8.8 8.0-9.5 180 166-203 22.7 20.4-24.3 E. fortunei Trucz. * o 0.1 0.1-0.3 E. yedoensis Koeh.* o 2.9 1.2-4.2 Juniperus chinensis L. * 1.6 8.0 80 4.6 2.9-6.8 J. communis L. * o 0.3 0.1-0.6 J. procumbens End!. * o 4.9 2.0-8.9 J. sabina L. * o 0.7 0.5-0.9 J. virginiana L. * o 0.3 0.2-0.3 Ligustmm vulgare L. 3.3 8.0 244 12.9 9.2-15.6 Malus adstringens Zabel. 96.6 5.3 5.0-6.0 279 232-264 30.9 26.5-33.3 M. amoldiana Sarg. 93.3 5.3 5.0-5.5 311 304-320 31.1 28.5-33.2 M. atrosanguinea Scheid. 96.6 5.3 5.0-6.0 252 232-264 30.8 28.0-32.9 M. floribunda Sieb. 83.3 5.0 5.0-5.0 186 145-207 27.4 26.8-28.4 M. pumila Mil!. 93.0 4.5 4.0-5.0 311 305-321 49.2 44.3-56.4 Plantanus occidentalis L.