Effects of prior egg deposition and egg shell consumption (a typical behaviour of neonate larvae) on larval performance (means ± SE) of <i>Pieris brassicae</i> on <i>Arabidopsis thaliana</i> Col-0 plants¹ (for statistics, see Table 2).

1<p>Batches of 40 freshly hatched larvae either fed upon a plant with prior <i>P. brassicae</i> egg deposition (Egg) or without any eggs (Control) until they were 4 days old; thereafter, batches of 10 larvae where transferred to fresh, undamaged egg-free plants, where they completed their development until pupation. ² Larvae were allowed to feed upon their egg shells. ³ Larvae were prevented from feeding upon their egg shells during the first 2 days after hatching. ⁴ Number of batches of larvae (1 batch per plant; <i>N</i> = 8 for freshly hatched larvae; <i>N</i> = initially 4 for elder larvae).