Defesa quimica por acaloides pirrolizidinicos (PAs) em Lepidoptera : testes por um predador vertebrado

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

1991

RESUMO

Visually-oriented vertebratepredators are ranked as the main enemies of adult butterflies and moths. Among them, birds are the most important, being considered strong selective agents in the development of several counter-adaptations by these insects in order to escape this intense pressure. Chemical defense acquired by the selective sequestration of toxic chemicals from plants or biosynthesized by the insects is one of the best known of these adaptations. Pyrrolizidine alkaloids are sequestered by butterflies of the Nymphalid subfamilies Ithomiinae and Danainae and moths of the family Arctiidae. Although, some experimental evidence supports the idea that PAs might be responsible for-the unpalatability of the insects that contain them, there is no direct experimental evidence that these chemicals may render a PA-bearing insect obnoxious to its major aelective agents -- birds. In this sense, an experiment was-designed to test the hypothesis of chemical defense by the accumulation of PA and also for its capacity to elicit an avertion conditioning in the predator if it is associated with a color pattern

ASSUNTO(S)

ecologia animal predação (biologia)

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