加勒比島上取食蕨類之鱗翅目幼蟲偽裝成孢子囊群

Lepidopteran Soral Crypsis on Caribbean Ferns

Biotropica, Volume 37 Issue 2, Pages 314 - 316

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Michael S. Barker 1, Shane W. Shaw, and R. James Hickey

Department of Botany, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 45056, U.S.A.

John E. Rawlins, and James W. Fetzner Jr.

Section of Invertebrate Zoology, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213, U.S.A.

ABSTRACT

Insect-fern interactions are not as well characterized as insect-angiosperm interactions. For example, the imitation of unique fern structures by insects has not been observed. On a recent trip to Puerto Rico, we collected ferns that bore small Lepidoptera imitating fern sori. Herbarium specimen searches indicate that these Lepidoptera are restricted to the Caribbean on ferns with highly visible sporangia. A possible selective pressure for the evolution of lepidopteran soral crypsis is wasp parasitism, as evidence of parasitoid wasps was found. However, it is more likely that soral crypsis evolved to avoid visually oriented predators such as birds or lizards.

植物與昆蟲的交互作用之研究中，以昆蟲與顯花植物的關係占多數，與蕨類有關的相對較少。本文首先報導了昆蟲模仿蕨類特定構造的行為，作者在波多黎各的一種鐵角蕨屬植物、一種烏毛蕨屬植物與三種水龍骨科植物上採集到鱗翅目幼蟲或蛹；並在植物標本館中檢視超過一千份來自佛羅里達、墨西哥、中美洲與南美洲北部之上列種類標本，發現只有在採自加勒比島的蕨類標本上可以找到這類鱗翅目昆蟲。作者發現這類幼蟲只利用成熟孢子囊群裸露的蕨類(不被孢膜覆蓋)，且幼蟲並不取食這些孢子而是取食植物的薄壁組織，孢子則移置於所造之巢的外層，巢的裡層為絲狀的構造，由外觀看來，這些蟲巢類似相連的孢子囊群，可能有助於躲避以視覺覓食的天敵。 這些幼蟲根據型態鑑定為麥蛾總科Gelechioidea，較可能是Batrachedrinae (Batrachedridae) or Blastobasinae (Coleophoridae) (Hodges 1998)；至於比對mtDNA之COI 與 COII序列之結果僅能確認為鱗翅目昆蟲，但無法獲得更佳的判斷。

我們近期亦採集到類似行為的鱗翅目幼蟲，持續飼育中。