ArticleThe Journal of experimental biology2021
Associative learning of non-sugar nectar components: amino acids modify nectar preference in a hawkmoth.
Article in The Journal of experimental biology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 25 citations in OpenAlex.
- Influence of drought stress on the metabolite and ion composition in nectar and nectaries of different day- and night-flowering Nicotiana species.Plant biology (Stuttgart, Germany) · 2026Article
- Augmenting plant-pollinator interactions to promote biodiversity and global food security.Frontiers in plant science · 2026Review
- The concentration and energetic content of floral nectar sugars: calculation, conversions, and common confusions.Journal of pollination ecology · 2025Article
- GhPME36 aggravates susceptibility to Liriomyza sativae by affecting cell wall biosynthesis in cotton leaves.BMC biology · 2024Article
- Differences in adult nutritional requirements impact the population growth and survival of two related species of rice leaffolders to produce interspecific differentiation.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Artificial flowers as a tool for investigating multimodal flower choice in wild insects.Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Regulation of feeding dynamics by the circadian clock, light and sex in an adult nocturnal insect.Frontiers in physiology · 2023Article
- A signal-like role for floral humidity in a nocturnal pollination system.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Nature's Most Fruitful Threesome: The Relationship between Yeasts, Insects, and Angiosperms.Journal of fungi (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Sweet solutions: nectar chemistry and quality.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Review
- Rodent responses to volatile compounds provide insights into the function of floral scent in mammal-pollinated plants.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Leaf Induction Impacts Behavior and Performance of a Pollinating Herbivore.Frontiers in plant science · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The nearly ubiquitous presence of amino acids in the nectar of flowering plants has led to significant interest in the relevance of these compounds to pollinator behavior and physiology. A number of flower-visiting animals exhibit behavioral preferences for nectar solutions containing amino acids, but these preferences vary by species and are often context or condition dependent. Furthermore, the relative strength of these preferences and potential influence on the foraging behavior of flower-visiting animals remains unclear. Here, we used innate preference tests and associative learning paradigms to examine the nectar preferences of the flower-visiting hawkmoth Manduca sexta, in relation to both sugar and amino acid content. Manduca sexta exhibited a strong preference for higher sucrose concentrations, while the effect of amino acids on innate feeding preference was only marginally significant. However, with experience, moths were able to learn nectar composition and flower color associations and to forage preferentially (against innate color preference) for nectar with a realistic amino acid composition. Foraging moths responding to learned color cues of nectar amino acid content exhibited a behavioral preference comparable to that observed in response to a 5% difference in nectar sucrose concentration. These results demonstrate that experienced foragers may assess nectar amino acid content in addition to nectar sugar content and caloric value during nectar-foraging bouts.
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