The effects of enriched CO2 atmospheres on plant-insect herbivore interactions: growth responses of larvae of the specialist butterfly, Junonia coenia (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae).

Little is known about the effects of enriched CO2 environments, which are anticipated to exist in the next century, on natural plant-insect herbivore interactions. To begin to understand such effects on insect growth and survival, I reared both early and penultimate instar larvae of the buckeye, Junonia coenia (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae), on leaves from one of their major hostplants, plantain, Plantago lanceolata (Plantaginaceae), grown in either ambient (350 PPM) or high (700 PPM) CO2 atmospheres. Despite consuming more foliage, early instar larvae experienced reduced growth on high CO2-grown compared to ambient CO2-grown leaves. However, survivorship of early instar larvae was unaffected by the CO2 treatment. Larval weight gain was positively correlated with the nitrogen concentration of the plant material and consumption was negatively correlated with foliar nitrogen concentration, whereas neither larval weight gain nor consumption were significantly correlated with foliar water or allelochemical concentrations. In contrast, penultimate instar larvae had similar growth rates on ambient and high CO2-grown leaves. Significantly higher consumption rates on high CO2-grown plants enabled penultimate instar larvae to obtain similar amounts of nitrogen in both treatments. These larvae grew at similar rates on foliage from the two CO2 treatments, despite a reduced efficiency of conversion of ingested food (ECI) on the low nitrogen, high CO2-grown plants. However, nitrogen utilization efficiencies (NUE) were unaffected by CO2 treatment. Again, for late instar larvae, consumption rates were negatively correlated with foliar nitrogen concentrations, and ECI was also very highly correlated with leaf nitrogen; foliar water or allelochemical concentrations did not affect either of these parameters. Differences in growth responses of early and late instar larvae to lower nitrogen, high-CO2 grown foliage may be due to the inability of early instar larvae to efficiently process the increased flow of food through the gut caused by additional consumption of high CO2 foliage.