Oligophagy refers to the eating of only a few specific
foods
Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is ing ...
, and to monophagy when restricted to a single food source.
Sikkim sees surge in butterfly biodiversity - The Hindu
/ref> The term is usually associated with insect
Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three ...
dietary behaviour.[''Oligophagy'' on Dictionary.com]
Accessed on 9 January 2010. Organisms may exhibit narrow or specific oligophagy where the diet is restricted to a very few foods or broad oligophagy where the organism feeds on a wide variety of specific foods but none other.[Huffaker & Gutierrez ''Ecological Entomology'', pg 201.]
Polyphagy
Feeding is the process by which organisms, typically animals, obtain food. Terminology often uses either the suffixes -vore, -vory, or -vorous from Latin ''vorare'', meaning "to devour", or -phage, -phagy, or -phagous from Greek φαγε ...
, on the contrary, refers to eating a broad spectrum of foods. In the insect world it refers usually to insects that feed on plants belonging to different families.
Examples
The diet of the yucca moth
The Prodoxidae are a family of moths, generally small in size and nondescript in appearance. They include species of moderate pest status, such as the currant shoot borer, and others of considerable ecological and evolutionary interest, such as ...
s is restricted to the developing fruits of species of yucca
''Yucca'' is a genus of perennial plant, perennial shrubs and trees in the family (biology), family Asparagaceae, subfamily Agavoideae. Its 40–50 species are notable for their Rosette (botany), rosettes of evergreen, tough, sword-shaped Leaf, ...
sea hare
The clade Anaspidea, commonly known as sea hares ('' Aplysia'' species and related genera), are medium-sized to very large opisthobranch gastropod molluscs with a soft internal shell made of protein. These are marine gastropod molluscs in the ...
, '' Aplysia juliana'' (Quoy & Gaimard), is found on and feeds only on a single alga
Algae (; singular alga ) is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from unicellular mic ...
, ''Ulva lactuca
''Ulva lactuca'', also known by the common name sea lettuce, is an edible green alga in the family Ulvaceae. It is the type species of the genus '' Ulva''. A synonym is ''U. fenestrata'', referring to its "windowed" or "holed" appearance.
Des ...
'' (Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...
) in east Australian waters.[Rogers et al (1995).] These are both narrow oligophages. Conversely the migratory locust
The migratory locust (''Locusta migratoria'') is the most widespread locust species, and the only species in the genus ''Locusta''. It occurs throughout Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. It used to be common in Europe but has now become ...
may be said to be broadly oligophagous or even polyphagous.
Footnotes
References
* (1999). ''Ecological Entomology''. 2nd Edition (illustrated). John Wiley and Sons. ,
Limited preview
on Google Books. Accessed 9 January 2010.
* (1994). "Factors associated with oligophagy in two species of sea hares (Mollusca: Anaspidea)". ''Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology'', Volume 192, Issue 1, 17 October 1995, Pages 47–73. .
{{Wiktionary
Eating behaviors
Insect behavior