Host specificity and variation in oviposition behaviour of milkweed stem weevils and implications for species divergence
Bibliographic record
Abstract
1. An herbivore's life‐history strategy, including optimization of resource use, is constrained by its evolutionary history and ecological factors varying across the landscape. 2. We asked if related and co‐distributed herbivore species maintain consistency of host preference and oviposition behaviours along the species' range. We surveyed two putative species of milkweed stem weevils, Rhyssomatus lineaticollis and R. annectens , which co‐occur alongside their hosts, Asclepias syriaca and A. incarnata . 3. We confirmed the two species status of weevils, supported by differences in morphology and a bilocus gene phylogeny. Furthermore, we found that species divergence recapitulated the weevils current host plant use. 4. We found oviposition variation within and between species. R. annectens poked the stem haphazardly or girdled it before oviposition. Meanwhile, R. lineaticollis primarily trenched stems in the north, but poked or girdled in the south. Variation in oviposition patterns could be a response to variation in host plant defenses. 5. In nature, weevils strictly oviposited on their respective host plants, while in bioassays, R. lineaticollis exhibited strong preference for A. syriaca and R. annectens fed equally on both host plants. 6. Overall, our results support that milkweed stem weevils are strict specialists but might be undergoing changes in host use. R. lineaticollis specializes on A. syriaca but has two distinct modes of oviposition. Meanwhile R. annectens seems to be more accepting of other hosts. We hypothesize that these weevils might be shifting host use associated with changes in host plant distributions.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".