The preference-performance hypothesis (PPH) states that herbivorous female insects prefer to oviposit on those host plants that are best for their offspring. Yet, past attempts to show the adaptiveness of host selection decisions by herbivores often failed. Here, we tested the PPH by including often neglected oviposition-induced plant responses, and how they may affect both egg survival and larval weight. We used seven Brassicaceae species of which most are common hosts of two cabbage white butterfly species, the solitary Pieris rapae and gregarious P. brassicae. Brassicaceous species can respond to Pieris eggs with leaf necrosis, which can lower egg survival. Moreover, plant-mediated responses to eggs can affect larval performance. We show a positive correlation between P. brassicae preference and performance only when including the egg phase: 7-day-old caterpillars gained higher weight on those plant species which had received most eggs. Pieris eggs frequently induced necrosis in the tested plant species. Survival of clustered P. brassicae eggs was unaffected by the necrosis in most tested species and no relationship between P. brassicae egg survival and oviposition preference was found. Pieris rapae preferred to oviposit on plant species most frequently expressing necrosis although egg survival was lower on those plants. In contrast to the lower egg survival on plants expressing necrosis, larval biomass on these plants was higher than on plants without a necrosis. We conclude that egg survival is not a crucial factor for oviposition choices but rather egg-mediated responses affecting larval performance explained the preference-performance relationship of the two butterfly species.

中文翻译：

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植物对蝴蝶产卵的反应部分解释了不同黄铜科物种的偏好与表现的关系。

偏好表现假说（PPH）指出，草食性雌性昆虫更倾向于在最适合其后代的寄主植物上产卵。然而，过去显示食草动物对寄主选择决策的适应性的尝试经常失败。在这里，我们通过包括通常被忽略的产卵诱导的植物反应以及它们如何影响卵子存活率和幼虫体重来测试了PPH。我们使用了七个十字花科，其中大多数是两个白菜白蝶的共同寄主，分别是菜青虫和群居的芸苔科。十字花科物种对皮利斯的鸡蛋有叶子坏死的反应，这会降低鸡蛋的存活率。此外，植物介导的对卵的反应会影响幼虫的生长。仅在包括卵期的情况下，我们才显示出芸苔假单胞菌偏好与性能之间存在正相关：7天大的毛毛虫对那些接受了最多卵子的植物增加了体重。皮埃利斯蛋经常在被测植物物种中引起坏死。在大多数测试物种中，簇生的芸苔卵的存活不受坏死的影响，并且未发现芸苔卵的存活与产卵偏好之间的关系。尽管在这些植物上卵的存活率较低，但菜青虫优选在最常表达坏死的植物上产卵。与表达坏死的植物的卵存活率较低相反，这些植物上的幼虫生物量高于没有坏死的植物。我们得出的结论是，卵的存活不是选择产卵的关键因素，而是卵介导的影响幼虫性能的反应解释了这两个蝴蝶物种的偏好-性能关系。