DOI: 10.5061/dryad.wdbrv15v5
title: Struggling to survive: A comparison of Vanessa cardui larval survivorship on putative host plants

description: The painted lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui) is a generalist herbivore with
 a global distribution. In North America, over 100 species have been
 identified as V. cardui larval host plants. This cosmopolitan species is
 commercially available in all life stages and can be reared on an
 artificial diet. As a result, V. cardui commonly serves as a model
 organism for education and outreach. However, gaps in our knowledge remain
 with regard to V. cardui ecology and larval host plant suitability for
 supporting complete development of larvae to reproductive adulthood. In a
 laboratory setting, we tested host plant suitability of five reported host
 plants commonly found in California sage scrub ecosystems by assessing
 survival of V. cardui caterpillars in their entirety. We also assessed how
 commercially sourced larvae survived on an artificial diet: both raising
 the caterpillars exclusively on an artificial diet, as well as switching
 diets from artificial to thistle (a commonly reported host plant) and
 switching from thistle to artificial diet. We found that all
 commercially-sourced caterpillars exhibited both high larval mortality and
 low pupation rates when reared on host plants, although larvae reared on
 Malacothamnus fasciculatus and Sphaeralcea ambigua survived longest.
 Moreover, M. fasciculatus and S. ambigua were the only host plants tested
 that supported successful pupation. This contrasted with a 63% higher
 survival of wild-collected larvae. Our findings suggest that commercially
 obtained V. cardui may struggle to utilize wild host plants and
 that future investigations into host plant suitability in wild populations
 are needed. Additionally, future research using commercial larvae should
 consider the implications for interpreting host plant suitability as
 larvae may exhibit adaptations to artificial diet or the loss of
 adaptation to consuming plant material.
description: Painted lady larvae were purchased from commercial sources and
 were reared on differing putative host plants and/or artificial diet
 configurations to follow survival and pupation success. We complemented
 the commercial larvae with wild-collected larvae and butterflies and
 measured the same variables.
description: # Struggling to survive: A comparison of Vanessa cardui larval survival on
 putative host plants This
 dataset is from the manuscript “Struggling to survive: A comparison of
 *Vanessa cardui* larval survivorship on putative host plants” and provides
 the details of the larval survival analyzed in this manuscript. **date:**
 Date of death for each larva **j.date:** Julian date of death **year:**
 Year of death **trial.no:** Trial number of the respective diet treatment
 **time:** Age of larva at death **status:** 1 = alive 2 = dead
 **mail.emerge:** y = larva emerged from egg while in mail. n = larva did
 not emerge from egg while in the mail **species:** ARTH = artificial diet
 to thistle. ARTI = artificial only. THAR = thistle to artificial. ABPA =
 Abutilon palmeri. MACL = Malacothamnus clementinus. MAFA = Malacothamnus
 fasciculatus. NIGL = Nicotiana glauca. SPAM = Sphaeralcea ambigua
 **source:** Source of egg/larvae (oviposition, Carolina Biological Supply
 Company, Educational Science Supply) **pot:** n = plant cutting in a water
 pick. y = live potted plant **plant.trial:** Plant species code and trial
 number **avg.rh:** Average relative humidity (%) for larva during lifespan
 **avg.temp:** Average temperature (celsius) for larva during lifespan