1. Adult diet of a tephritid fruit fly does not compensate for impact of a poor larval diet on stress resistance
- Author
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Susan W. Nicolson, Esther Elizabeth Du Rand, Aruna Manrakhan, Kevin Malod, Christopher W. Weldon, Fabien Demares, and Sandiso Mnguni
- Subjects
0106 biological sciences ,0303 health sciences ,Government ,Life span ,Physiology ,business.industry ,030310 physiology ,fungi ,Bursary ,Aquatic Science ,Stress resistance ,010603 evolutionary biology ,01 natural sciences ,03 medical and health sciences ,Scholarship ,Insect Science ,Political science ,Animal Science and Zoology ,Socioeconomics ,Human resources ,business ,Molecular Biology ,Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics ,Block grant ,Matching funds - Abstract
Adult holometabolous insects may derive metabolic resources from either larval or adult feeding, but little is known of whether adult diets can compensate for deficiencies in the larval diet in terms of stress resistance. We investigated how stress resistance is affected and compensated for by diet across life stages in the marula fruit fly, Ceratitis cosyra (Walker) (Diptera: Tephritidae). Larvae were fed diets containing either 8% torula yeast, the standard diet used to rear this species, or 1% yeast (low protein content similar to known host fruit). At emergence, adults from each larval diet were tested for initial mass, water content, body composition, and desiccation and starvation resistance or they were allocated to one of two adult diet treatments: sucrose only, or sucrose and yeast hydrolysate. The same assays were then repeated after 10 days of adult feeding. Development on a low protein larval diet led to lower body mass and improved desiccation and starvation resistance in newly emerged adults, even though adults from the high protein larval diet had the highest water content. Adult feeding decreased desiccation or starvation resistance, regardless of the diet provided. Irrespective of larval diet history, newly emerged, unfed adults had significantly higher dehydration tolerance than those that were fed. Lipid reserves played a role in starvation resistance. There was no evidence for metabolic water from stored nutrients extending desiccation resistance. Our findings show the possibility of a nutrient-poor larval environment leading to correlated improvement in adult performance, at least in the short term.
- Published
- 2019