Natural Products Diversity in Plant-Insect Interaction between Tithonia diversifolia (Asteraceae) and Chlosyne lacinia (Nymphalidae)

The chemical ecology of plant-insect interactions has been driving our understanding of ecosystem evolution into a more comprehensive context. Chlosyne lacinia (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) is an olygophagous insect herbivore, which mainly uses host plants of Heliantheae tribe (Asteraceae). Herein, plant-insect interaction between Tithonia diversifolia (Heliantheae) and Chlosyne lacinia was investigated by means of untargeted LC-MS/MS based metabolomics and molecular networking, which aims to explore its inherent chemical diversity. C. lacinia larvae that were fed with T. diversifolia leaves developed until fifth instar and completed metamorphosis to the adult phase. Sesquiterpene lactones (STL), flavonoids, and lipid derivatives were putatively annotated in T. diversifolia (leaves and non-consumed abaxial surface) and C. lacinia (feces, larvae, pupae, butterflies, and eggs) samples. We found that several furanoheliangolide-type STL that were detected in T. diversifolia were ingested and excreted in their intact form by C. lacinia larvae. Hence, C. lacinia caterpillars may have, over the years, developed tolerance mechanisms for STL throughout effective barriers in their digestive canal. Flavonoid aglycones were mainly found in T. diversifolia samples, while their glycosides were mostly detected in C. lacinia feces, which indicated that the main mechanism for excreting the consumed flavonoids was through their glycosylation. Moreover, lysophospholipids were predominately found in C. lacinia samples, which suggested that they were essential metabolites during pupal and adult stages. These findings provide insights into the natural products diversity of this plant-insect interaction and contribute to uncovering its ecological roles.