Preference Provides a Plethora of Problems (Don't Panic)

Abstract

This review was solicited as an autobiography. The “problems” in my title have two meanings. First, they were professional difficulties caused by my decision to study oviposition preferences of butterflies that were not susceptible to traditional preference-testing designs. Until I provided video, my claim that the butterflies duplicate natural postalighting host-assessment behavior when placed on hosts by hand was not credible, and the preference-testing technique that I had developed elicited skepticism, anger, and derision. The second meaning of “problems” is scientific. Insect preference comes with complex dimensionality that interacts with host acceptability. Part Two of this review describes how my group's work in this area has revealed unexpected axes of variation in plant–insect interactions—axes capable of frustrating attempts to derive unequivocal conclusions from apparently sensible experimental designs. The possibility that these complexities are lurking should be kept in mind as preference and performance experiments are devised. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Entomology, Volume 66 is January 11, 2020. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Host preference of the tree‐killing bark beetle Polygraphus proximus across a geographic boundary separating host species

“…The HHSP assumes that insects will prefer to oviposit on their natal host species, resulting in host specialization. The HHSP has been controversial and has been tested several times over the years (Barron, 2001; Singer, 2021). However, several studies have failed to show adult preference for the larval feeding plant (West et al, 2016; Wiklund et al, 2018).…”

Larval sites of the mosquito Aedes aegypti formosus in forest and domestic habitats in Africa and the potential association with oviposition evolution

“…The twochoice or multi-choice assays have been used widely to investigate Ae. aegypti oviposition choices, but it may have limitations on measuring true preferences (Singer, 2004(Singer, , 2021. Colonies may have also lost distinctive traits due to adaptation to laboratory conditions (Hoffmann & Ross, 2018).…”

Genetic Mechanisms underlying Preference-Performance Mismatches: Insights from a Specialized Native Herbivore on an Invasive Toxic Plant

“…In certain scenarios, known as evolutionary traps, abrupt or rapid environmental change can lead to instances where evolved reliable cues fail, resulting in repeated oviposition error [19,30,31,35,36]. This could occur either due to female's inability to distinguish between hosts and non-hosts to avoid costly mistakes or the failure of larvae to incorporate the novel host due to behavioral or physiological constraints [31][32][33][36][37][38].…”