Insect Ecology Lab

Fall webworm responses to thermal stress

Fall webworms are widespread generalist herbivores native to North America, they can feed on over 400 species of plants and have expanded their range to Europe and Asia, where they are invasive. Generalist species are expected to be more resilient than specialists under stressful conditions; however, this notion is not always supported experimentally. To understand the relationship between diet breadth and resilience to thermal stress we are comparing the responses of two fall webworm morphs, red heads, which have a relatively narrow diet breadth, and black heads, which have a relatively broad diet breadth.