The Brazilian Cerrado presents a great variety of Lepidoptera species; however, information concerning their larvae plant hosts lacks. The present work was developed at Área de Relevante Interesse Ecológico (ARIE) – Cerrado Pé-de-Gigante, located in Santa Rita do Passa Quatro, SP, Brazil, where several lepidoptera species can be found, mainly the Oecophoridae, Pyralidae, Riodinidae, Lycaenidae, Notoctuidae, Tortricidae and Gelechiidae families. Various species build shelters using leaves where larvae end their life cycles. One of the objectives of this work was to study the relations between herbivory by lepidoptera leaf rollers and the total contents of nitrogen, water and tannins in the leaves of Byrsonima intermedia (Malpighiaceae). The larval food preference and its relation to leaf nutritional quality was determined in bioassays. The research shows that immature leaves inside the rolls present a low concentration of tannins (14% dw) compared to immature leaves totally exposed to sunlight (40% dw), but there were no differences in water or nitrogen content between these leaf groups. The results of the bioassays using Cerconata achantina showed that larvae prefer immature leaves (15 to 30 days old) exposed to less than 5% of total light incidence inside roll condition rather than those exposed to total light incidence outside roll condition. The herbivory level in immature leaves inside the rolls was more than 50% while in leaves outside the rolls, it was less than 5%. The results from lepidoptera leaf rollers show that these leaf shelters increase the leaf nutritional quality inside the rolls, which is related to the low content of tannins, compounds considered as defenses against insects since they cause protein precipitation. The rolls can also provide protection against desiccation, predators and parasites.

Index terms: nutritional preference, Oecophoridae, tannin, bioassays, nutritional quality, immature leaves, shelter, Cerrado