Posted: Jul 11, 2017 5:02 pm
tuco wrote:Nah, he just cant Google at work.
Induced defences in plants reduce herbivory by increasing cannibalism - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559- ... BLOIxRbeZg
Linked in the article, behind paywall.
That wasn't my point, since the article you linked was also restricted to a specific pair of plant and insect species, whereas the headline seems to generalise the effect to all insects with caterpillar stages, and therefore all food plants as well. However, this is not even possible. I suspect that most caterpillar species cannot even find each after the first instar, and may not be capable of eating each other if they did, being specalised for eating leaves, often of a specific plant type. (I'm guessing some would try, though, if denied sufficient plant matter).
EDIT: Large blue caterpilars eat ant larvae, so they might turn on each other if they weren't already well separated , and weren't able to find enough ant larvae.