cecropia larvae

[Kurt Jacobs]

"NewtChris" <newtchris at aol.com> wrote in message >

> My evidence is that, directly opposed to your observations....  Cecropia
will
> eat maple,

My two examples of maple species (Norway and Red) which I have had poor
results raising cecropia were pretty exotic.  I am really out of my league
when it comes to trees, but i believe they both were intoduced into North
America for their landscaping aesthetics.  I tried them out because they
were near my yard and I was curious. I would agree that Maples are great
cecropia food.  Isn't Box Elder a maple?

As you mentioned Chris, it would be interesting to know if cecropia
populations in the Midwest are different than those in the East in their
growth rates on different species of deciduous trees (I use Midwest and East
just for examples).  I am not sure if the preference of host is much of an
issue, since usually the cecropia will continue to eat its initial host as
its favorite.  Therefore it matters only where the eggs are deposited.  I
think of the cecropia as mindlessing affixing eggs to just about anything,
but possibly the females could choose one species over another.  This would
be difficult to show.  It would be easy to show growth rates of cecropia on
different plants however, and I can guarantee that cecropia grows faster and
bigger on some trees than on others.  The unanswered question is : Does a
Midwestern population of cecropia grow at different rates on the same host
as an Eastern population?  Just to complicate this, how different is the Box
Elder in the East from that found in the Midwest?  And what role does
temperature, humidity, wind velocity (hey, those Chicago cecropias have to
hing unto the same leaf until the wind dies down), amount of sunlight, etc,
have on the cecropias growth rate on a specific tree.  Could the same
genetic cecropias fare better on willow if it is an unusually wet June than
on Box Elder, while if the June had been dry, could they have fared better
on Lilac than on anything else?