Associate Professor Saint Louis University St. Louis, Missouri
Developmental environment can affect the expression of a range of ecological and mating-related traits, with important consequences for adult habitat use and patterns of mating. Here, we studied the treehopper Entylia carinata to test whether the plant species on which an individual develops affects where it prefers to feed, where it prefers to sexually signal, and the dominant frequency of male vibrational signals. Entylia carinata naturally occurs on three plant species in our focal population and exhibits population genomic structure according to the plant species on which individuals feed. We reared juveniles collected from two of the plant species in a 2x2 design in the greenhouse. We then tested adult preference for the location of feeding and sexual signaling, and quantified variation in male sexual signals. We found no costs of switching plant species in terms of survival, maturation or adult weight. However, we found shifts in maturation time across plant species, and adults preferred to feed and sexually signal on the plant species on which they developed. Furthermore, males that developed on different plant species showed different dominant signal frequencies. Together, our results suggest that developmental plasticity could be involved in multiple mechanisms generating assortative mating by developmental environment, and could contribute to population genomic structure.