Behavioral changes in caterpillars of the hawkmoth <i>Manduca sexta</i> (Sphingidae) induced by the parasitoid wasp <i>Cotesia congregata</i> (Braconidae)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Caterpillars of the tobacco hawkmoth, Manduca sexta (Sphingidae) (Linnaeus, 1763), can strike by whirling their mandible-bearing head capsule toward an aversive stimulus and biting. The strike response may defend the caterpillars against parasitism by the wasp Cotesia congregata (Say, 1836). We hypothesize that in parasitized caterpillars, this behavior may be manipulated so the caterpillars exhibit elevated defensive behavior for the developing wasp larvae, preventing additional parasitic events, which we show can be deadly to host and parasitoid. We compared the thresholds for strike behavior in response to a mechanical stimulus between parasitized and unparasitized M. sexta. We also explored the differences in sensitivity to touch between parasitized and unparasitized M. sexta. We then asked whether already parasitized caterpillars might defend themselves (and their parasitoids) more effectively than caterpillars that have not previously encountered a wasp. If such were the case, the caterpillar could serve as bodyguard for the parasitoid by exhibiting elevated defensive behavior. Finally, we asked whether the strike response is an effective way to ward off parasitism initially. To do this, we examined whether unparasitized caterpillars with innately lower strike thresholds were more difficult for a wasp to parasitize than less sensitive caterpillars. We measured the time to parasitism and the number of defensive strikes by the caterpillar and correlated these to the initial strike sensitivity of each caterpillar. Taken together, our results indicate that the parasitized caterpillars are more likely to ward off additional parasitic events, protecting not only themselves but also the growing wasp larvae they are hosting.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
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 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 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 | 0.001 |
| 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".