Effect of Environmental Pollution on Nutritional Indices and the Phenoloxidase Activity of Agelastica alni (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) Larvae

The present study investigated the nutritional indices and immune responses of Agelastica alni L. larvae in heavy metal pollution (cadmium, zinc, copper, nickel, and iron). Larvae collected from 2 different localities with different levels of heavy metal pollution were fed with leaves from 3 different localities. The localities and the corresponding plant samples were designated as low-pollution, moderate-pollution, and high-pollution regions based on their degree of pollution. The development duration, the nutritional indices (approximate digestibility, Efficiency of conversion of digested food, Efficiency of conversion of ingested food, Relative comcumption rate, and Relative growth rate), and the phenoloxidase activity of the larvae were determined. It was determined that approximate digestibility, efficiency of conversion of digested food, efficiency of conversion of ingested food values decreased when the larvae from the low-pollution locality were fed on the leaves with high pollution. The increase in the heavy metal content caused an increase in the approximate digestibility value for the larvae collected from high-pollution localities. In addition, the relative consumption rate values of the larvae collected from low-pollution localities were higher than the corresponding values for the larvae collected from high-pollution localities. The increase in heavy metals other than iron caused an increase in the phenoloxidase activities of the high-pollution larvae.