Nutrition & Dietary Needs Flashcards
7 cards from real ACE practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Nutrition & Dietary Needs flashcards as text
What nutritional deficiency most commonly limits insect performance when feeding on plant phloem?
Answer: Essential amino acid deficiency
Phloem sap is rich in sugars but poor in essential amino acids, making nitrogen the key limiting nutrient for phloem-feeding insects.
An insect's ability to regulate the ratio of protein to carbohydrate intake is best described by which concept?
Answer: Nutritional geometry (geometric framework)
The geometric framework of nutrition (nutritional geometry) models how insects actively regulate macronutrient intake to reach a specific protein-to-carbohydrate target.
Which vitamin is particularly critical for insect vision and is often limiting in herbivorous insects feeding on mature leaves?
Answer: Beta-carotene (Vitamin A precursor)
Beta-carotene, a precursor to retinal used in photoreceptor pigments, is especially important for insect visual function and can be limited in senescing plant tissue.
Coprophagy in certain insects such as termites primarily serves to:
Answer: Re-acquire gut symbionts and nutrients
Termites practice coprophagy to re-inoculate their gut with essential protozoa and bacteria and to recover incompletely digested nutrients.
Which of the following best describes the dietary classification of a polyphagous pest?
Answer: Feeds on a wide variety of unrelated plant species
Polyphagous insects consume a broad range of taxonomically unrelated hosts, making them particularly challenging pests from a management perspective.
In holometabolous insects, the nutritional needs of larvae and adults are often very different because:
Answer: Larvae accumulate reserves for metamorphosis while adults focus on reproduction
Larvae of holometabolous insects function primarily as feeding and growth stages, storing nutrients used during pupal metamorphosis, while adults focus on dispersal and reproduction.
What is the primary function of the fat body in insect nutrition?
Answer: Store and metabolize nutrients including lipids, glycogen, and proteins
The insect fat body is a multifunctional metabolic organ that stores lipids, glycogen, and proteins and mobilizes them during starvation, metamorphosis, and reproduction.