PREFERENCE HIERARCHIES AND THE ORIGIN OF GEOGRAPHIC SPECIALIZATION IN HOST USE IN SWALLOWTAIL BUTTERFLIES.

Four allopatric populations of the widely distributed western anise swallowtail butterfly, Papilio zelicaon, use different plant genera as hosts, but simultaneous choice experiments showed that these populations have diverged only slightly in oviposition preference. Of the four populations-two from southeastern Washington State, one from coastal southwestern Washington State, and one from central California-three use hosts that are not available to any of the others. Although variation for the degree of preference for particular plant species occurred within and among populations, all four populations ranked hosts in the same overall order. Monophagy on a local, low-ranking host outside the range of high-ranking hosts did not necessarily lead to the loss of preference for those high-ranking hosts, thereby indicating that the high-ranking hosts would still be accepted, and in some cases even preferred, if a population encountered them again. Hence, the overall preference hierarchy among P. zelicaon populations appears to be evolutionarily conservative. Analyses of differences among families within the California population indicated that increased preference for some hosts is inversely correlated, whereas preference for other hosts may be uncorrelated. Positive correlations may also occur but were not observed among the plant species tested. Overall, the results indicate local monophagy on different plant species in P. zelicaon has not involved major reorganizations in the preference hierarchy of ovipositing females, even in populations that may have fed on a low-ranking host for many generations. Instead, small increases in preference for local hosts have occurred within an evolutionarily conservative preference hierarchy. © 1993 The Society for the Study of Evolution.