Resource selection by female moths in a heterogeneous environment: what is a poor girl to do?

1. According to the preference-performance hypothesis, female insects select resources that maximize offspring performance. To achieve high fitness, leaf miner females should then adjust their oviposition behaviour in response to leaf attributes signalling high host quality. 2. Here we investigate resource selection in Tischeria ekebladella, a leaf-mining moth of the pedunculate oak (Quercus robur), in relation to two alternative hypotheses: (1) females select their resources with respect to their future quality for developing larvae; or (2) temporal changes in resource quality prevent females from selecting the best larval resources. 3. Specifically, we test whether females show the strongest selection at the levels at which quality varies the most (shoots and leaves); whether they respond to specific leaf attributes (leaf size, phenolic content and conspecific eggs); and whether female preference is reflected in offspring performance. 4. Female choice of leaves was found to be non-random. Within trees, the females preferred certain shoots, but when the shoots were on different trees the degree of discrimination was about four times larger than when they were on the same trees. 5. While females typically lay more eggs on large leaves, this is not a result of active selection of large leaves, but rather a result of females moving at random and ovipositing at regular intervals. 6. The females in our study did not adjust their oviposition behaviour in response to leaf phenolic contents (as measured by the time of larval feeding). Neither did they avoid leaves with conspecific eggs. 7. Female choice of oviposition sites did not match patterns of offspring performance: there was no positive association between offspring survival and counts of eggs. 8. We propose that temporal variation in resource quality may prevent female moths from evaluating resource quality reliably. To compensate for this, females may adopt a risk-spreading strategy when selecting their resources.