DOI: 10.5061/dryad.1vhhmgr02
title: Oviposition trials of Euphydryas phaeton on Plantago lanceolata

description: Understanding the circumstances under which insect herbivores will adopt a
 novel host plant is a longstanding question in basic and applied ecology.
 Though there has been ample study of regional differences in host
 preference across numerous insect herbivores, the extent to which
 intraspecific variation in plant species shape these patterns is
 relatively less well known. In parts of its range the Baltimore
 checkerspot Euphydryas phaeton uses English
 plantain Plantago lanceolata, a novel host plant, in addition to
 its native host, White turtlehead Chelone galbra. We
 offered female butterflies from each region the non-native host lpant
 sourced from both regions and compared their oviposition behavior. The
 non-native host was near universally rejected by butterflies in the region
 where only the native plant is used. In the region where both hosts are
 used, plants from that same region were preferred relative to plants from
 the other region. This suggests that regional variation in host plant use
 by an insect depends on intraspecific variation in both species in the
 interaction.
description: Female butterflies in two parts of the Baltimore
 checkerspots' range (two field sites in Maryland and one site in
 Massachusetts) were offered White turtlehead to assess their gravidity in
 the field. Gravid females were offerred English plantain from both regions
 randomly in sequence, in addition to some naturally growing plants, to
 understand how acceptance differs based on butterfly and plant origin. See
 the Methods of the associated manuscript and Fig. 1 for more
 details.
description: # Oviposition trials of Euphydryas phaeton on Plantagao lanceolata ***
 Understanding the circumstances under which insect herbivores will adopt a
 novel host plant is a longstanding question in basic and applied ecology.
 Though there has been ample study of regional differences in host
 preference across numerous insect herbivores, the extent to which
 intraspecific variation in plant species shape these patterns is
 relatively less well known. In parts of its range the Baltimore
 checkerspot Euphydryas phaeton uses English plantain Plantago lanceolata,
 a novel host plant, in addition to its native host, White
 turtlehead Chelone galbra. We offered female butterflies from each region
 the non-native host plant sourced from both regions and compared their
 oviposition behavior. The non-native host was near universally rejected by
 butterflies in the region where only the native plant is used. In the
 region where both hosts are used, plants from that same region were
 preferred relative to plants from the other region. This suggests that
 regional variation in host plant use by an insect depends on intraspecific
 variation in both species in the interaction. Female butterflies in two
 parts of the Baltimore checkerspots' range (two field sites in
 Maryland and one site in Massachusetts) were offered White turtlehead to
 assess their gravidity in the field. Gravid females were offered English
 plantain from both regions randomly in sequence, in addition to some
 naturally growing plants, to understand how acceptance differs based on
 butterfly and plant origin. See the Methods of the associated manuscript
 and Fig. 1 for more details. ## Description of the data and file structure
 Observation of the 'plantain\_trials.csv' represents an
 individual offering of English plantain to Baltimore checkerspot females.
 Each column describes: * 'Date': the date of the trial in
 MM/DD/YYYY format * 'But State': the butterfly state (also where
 the trial took place) * 'But ID': color-coded identifier for
 each butterfly * 'Plant Type': species of plant used (in this
 case all plantain) * 'Plant State': plant origin * 'Plant
 Site': plant site origin * 'Plant #': number identifier for
 unique plants from each site * 'time (ovi.sec)': for butterflies
 which accepted, the time until oviposition acceptance *
 'Acc/Rej': where the plant was accepted or rejected NAs exist in
 the 'Plant #' column for all ground plants since there were no
 numbered ground plants. Since plants were selected haphazardly on the
 ground, we did not mark every ground plant. NAs exist in the 'time
 (ovi.sec)' column because times were not recorded for those
 butterflies that rejected the host plant. As such, all rows where
 'Acc/Rej' is 0 also has 'time (ovi.sec)' as being NA.
 Observation of 'turtlehead\_control.csv' represents an
 individual offerings of turtlehead to apparently mated female butterflies:
 * 'Date': the date of the trial * 'But State': the
 butterfly state (also where the trial took place) * 'But Site':
 site where the trial took place * 'Plant Species': plant site
 origin * 'Plant Collect': how the plant was collected *
 'time(day)': the time at which the trial took place * 'time
 (ovi.sec)': for butterflies which accepted, the time until
 oviposition acceptance * 'Acc/Rej': where the plant was accepted
 or rejected NAs exist in the 'time (ovi.sec)' column because
 times were not recorded for those butterflies that rejected the host
 plant. As such, all rows where 'Acc/Rej' is 0 also has
 'time (ovi.sec)' as being NA. ## Code/Software R Code has been
 made available for this project. The file
 'oviposition_trials_of_E_phaeton_on_P_lanceolata.R' includes all
 analyses run with this data that were represented in the manuscript. We
 recommend copying the information (for both the directory and the ) lines
 36 and 37. The document has been commented for ease of use. Please refer
 to the file itself which has a header including more information.