Prospección de lepidópteros antófagos asociados a Acacia macracantha Willd. (Fabaceae) en el norte de Chile

Egg laying site selection by a host plant specialist leaf miner moth at two intra-plant levels in the northern Chilean Atacama Desert

“…Like A. tecomae, many native, little known Lepidoptera of the coastal valleys of the Atacama Desert are associated with relatively ephemeral plant organs, eating on flowers (Vargas & Parra 2009), new leaves or unripe seeds (Vargas 2011). Furthermore, many of these are strongly associated with their respective host plants, including some cases of monophagy.…”

“…The mean annual precipitation recorded in the area is about 0 mm (Luebert & Pliscoff 2006); however the transversal valleys harbor perennial or semi perennial streams as a result of the summer rains that occur in the high plateau and the western slopes of the Andes. This phenomenon allows the presence of native vegetation and agricultural activity along the bottom of the valleys (Vargas & Parra 2009). Habitat destruction and modification have been extremely intensive in many areas of the transverse valleys, mostly due to the agricultural activity (Luebert & Pliscoff 2006).…”

Lycaenid caterpillars (Lepidoptera, Lycaenidae) eating flowers of Dalea pennellii var. chilensis (Fabaceae) in the northern Chilean Andes

“…For instance, Lycaenidae was mentioned as the third most important lepidopteran family in number of flower-feeding species in an area of the Brazilian cerrado near Brasilia (Morais et al 2009). This specialized feeding behaviour is apparently widespread among the larvae of Neotropical Eumaeini (Badenes-Pérez et al 2010;Kaminski & Freitas 2010;Kaminski et al , 2012Kaminski et al , 2013Silva et al 2011;Bächtold et al 2013;Robbins & Glassberg 2013;Vargas & Duarte 2014) and Polyommatini (Benyamini 1995;Duarte et al 2001;Vargas & Parra 2009). Higher concentrations of proteins and amino acids and lower levels of alkaloids have been mentioned as possible causes underlying the specialization of lycaenid larvae to feed on rapidly differentiating plant tissue, as flowers or developing fruits (Chew & Robbins 1984).…”

“…Previous host plant records available for H. ramon are based on collections and rearing performed near sea level in the coastal valleys of the 1 2 3 311 Lycaenid caterpillars eating flowers of Dalea pennellii var. chilensis in the northern Chilean Andes northern Chilean Atacama Desert on inflorescences of the native Acacia macracantha and the exotic Medicago sativa (Benyamini 1995;Vargas & Parra 2009). These same two plants are also consumed by larvae of L. trigemmatus in the same habitats (Benyamini 1995;Vargas & Parra 2009).…”

First host plant records for Iridopsis hausmanni Vargas (Lepidoptera, Geometridae) in the coastal valleys of northern Chile

“…(Fabaceae) (Vargas & Parra 2009), and are the only prey of the potter wasp Hypodynerus andeus (Packard, 1869) (Hymenoptera, Vespidae, Eumeninae) (Méndez-Abarca et al 2012). Thus host plant documentation for species of this moth family is important in order to know and understand their field biology adequately.…”