Bachelor project in trophic ecology – Mehdi Cherif.
Where to lay my eggs?
Nutrient-driven oviposition choice in insects
Terrestrial herbivores in productive ecosystems are seemingly faced with a profusion of
resources, with plenty of plant material everywhere to be seen. But invisible to the eyes are
tremendous variations in the quality of plants as food for herbivores. More visible are the
many predators that forage incessantly for preys. Faced with these challenges, herbivores
have to judiciously choose the plants they eat. That is particularly true when it comes to
young rearing, since parents need to select the most nutritious food that will allow the fastest
growth possible for their young until they reach the stage where they can better evade their
predators.
In a previous lab experiment using a leaf-eating beetle, Phratora viminalis, and leaves of
the willow Salix viminalis, we observed that females laid their eggs on nitrogen-enriched
leaves. Your task will be to test the robustness of this observation, performing choice
experiments between control and enriched leaves for ovipositing females. Different settings
for the experiments will be tested: from isolated leaves in petri dishes, to leaves on the same
plant, or on different plants.
Your task will be to conduct the choice experiments, gather data and look for differences
between enriched and non-enriched leaves using statistical analyses.
If interested, please contact:
Dr. Mehdi Cherif
Room A4-42-21
Ecology and Environmental Science Department
Umeå University
Phone: 090-786 9239
mehdi.cherif@umu.se