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At least 253 records · Page 14Linked to original sources
PubMed2006

Genetics of host plant use and life history in the comma butterfly across Europe: varying modes of inheritance as a potential reproductive barrier.

Comma butterflies (Nymphalidae: Polygonia c-album L.) from one Belgian site and three Spanish sites were crossed with butterflies from a Swedish population in order to investigate inheritance of female host plant choice, egg mass and larval growth rate. We found three different modes of inheritance for the three investigated traits. In line with earlier results from crosses between Swedish and English populations, the results regarding female oviposition preference (choice between Urtica dioica and Salix caprea) showed X-linked inheritance to be of importance for the variation between Sweden and the other sites. Egg mass and growth rate did not show any sex-linked inheritance. Egg mass differences between populations seem to be controlled mainly by additive autosomal genes, as hybrids showed intermediate values. The growth rates of both hybrid types following reciprocal crossings were similar to each other but consistently higher than for the two source populations, suggesting a nonadditive mode of inheritance which is not sex-linked. The different modes of inheritance for host plant preference vs. important life history traits are likely to result in hybrids with unfit combinations of traits. This type of potential reproductive barrier based on multiple ecologically important traits deserves more attention, as it should be a common situation for instance in the early stages of population divergence in host plant usage, facilitating ecological speciation.

Animals↗
PubMed1985

A natural toxic defense system: cardenolides in butterflies versus birds.

We have verified that wild birds can become conditioned to reject naturally toxic insects either visually (experiment 1) or by taste (experiment 2). We have also verified, however, that unconditioned taste rejection of noxious chemicals by wild birds also occurs (experiment 3). Such unconditioned responses to the aposematic visual and taste cues of many insects, in fact, often appear to be as important as, or more important than, conditioned responses. In a large number of laboratory feeding experiments with wild birds as predators of aposematic insects, initial and/or long-term rejection occurs without prior laboratory conditioning experience. Although in some experiments the birds may have previously been exposed to (and therefore perhaps conditioned by) the aposematic prey in the wild, other experiments have used naive birds or insects whose ranges do not overlap those of the birds. Wiklund and Jarvi, for example, tested the response of 47 naive hand-raised birds of four species to five aposematic insect species, and found that 69/136 (51%) insects were rejected visually without even tasting, while 63 were tasted and then rejected. Only four of the insects were actually ingested. Similarly, in Bowers' study of the response of Massachusetts blue jays to aposematic western U.S. Euphydryas butterflies, several blue jays consistently rejected the butterflies visually or by taste without having eaten any. While these studies were not designed to separate neophobic effects from innate visual and/or taste aversions, they do differentiate between conditioned and unconditioned responses. Since both conditioned and unconditioned rejections can be demonstrated in the lab by insectivorous birds, and our available field evidence does not yet let us distinguish the mechanisms behind the observed patterns, our initial question, of the relative importance of conditioned versus unconditioned rejection mechanisms in different natural situations, is not yet answerable. The most important requirement of a food-rejection strategy is that it prevents both poisoning and starvation. We have shown, however, that rejection of a noxious insect by a bird can take place at four distinct levels (visual, non-destructive taste sampling, destructive taste sampling, or post-ingestional physiological rejection), the first three of which may be either unconditioned or conditioned by a physiological reaction to ingestion.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Animals↗
PubMed2025

Wolbachia Host Shifts and Widespread Occurrence of Reproductive Manipulation Loci in European Butterflies.

Wolbachia is the most frequent bacterial endosymbiont of arthropods and nematodes. Although it is mostly vertically transmitted, from parent to offspring through the egg cytoplasm, horizontal transfer of Wolbachia is thought to be common over evolutionary timescales. However, the relative frequency of each transmission mechanism has not been studied systematically in closely related species. Additionally, while Wolbachia is generally regarded as a reproductive manipulator, it is unclear how frequently the symbiont induces such effects. In this study, we investigated the presence, phenotypes and phylogenetic relationships among Wolbachia strains in whole genome sequence data for 18 European butterfly sister-species pairs. We find that sister-species share Wolbachia strains more often than random species pairs and that the probability of strain sharing is higher for younger pairs of host species, especially those with greater range overlap. We also find that split times between Wolbachia strains that infect the same sister-species pair generally pre-date host divergence, ruling out co-divergence in favour of horizontal transfer. However, some strains are younger than the mitochondrial split times of their hosts, so introgressive transfer cannot be ruled out in some cases. In addition, all newly assembled Wolbachia genomes contained putative homologues of genes associated with cytoplasmic incompatibility and male killing. This supports the potential for reproductive manipulation in Wolbachia strains infecting European butterflies, which until now was only inferred from mitochondrial diversity patterns. Our results show that horizontal and introgressive transfer of Wolbachia are frequent even between recently speciated host taxa, suggesting the symbiont's turnover rate is higher than had been inferred previously from surveys of distantly related hosts.

Animals↗
PubMed2004

Comparative losses of British butterflies, birds, and plants and the global extinction crisis.

There is growing concern about increased population, regional, and global extinctions of species. A key question is whether extinction rates for one group of organisms are representative of other taxa. We present a comparison at the national scale of population and regional extinctions of birds, butterflies, and vascular plants from Britain in recent decades. Butterflies experienced the greatest net losses, disappearing on average from 13% of their previously occupied 10-kilometer squares. If insects elsewhere in the world are similarly sensitive, the known global extinction rates of vertebrate and plant species have an unrecorded parallel among the invertebrates, strengthening the hypothesis that the natural world is experiencing the sixth major extinction event in its history.

Animals↗
PubMed2006

Color discrimination at the spatial resolution limit in a swallowtail butterfly, Papilio xuthus.

Spatial resolution of insect compound eyes is much coarser than that of humans: a single pixel of the human visual system covers about 0.008 degrees whereas that of diurnal insects is typically about 1.0 degrees . Anatomically, the pixels correspond to single cone outer segments in humans and to single rhabdoms in insects. Although an outer segment and a rhabdom are equivalent organelles containing visual pigment molecules, they are strikingly different in spectral terms. The cone outer segment is the photoreceptor cell part that expresses a single type of visual pigment, and is therefore monochromatic. On the other hand, a rhabdom is composed of several photoreceptor cells with different spectral sensitivities and is therefore polychromatic. The polychromatic organization of the rhabdom suggests that insects can resolve wavelength information in a single pixel, which is an ability that humans do not have. We first trained the Japanese yellow swallowtail butterfly Papilio xuthus to feed on sucrose solution at a paper disk of certain color. We then let the trained butterflies discriminate disks of the training color and grey disks each presented in a Y-maze apparatus. Papilio correctly selected the colored disk when the visual angle was greater than 1.18 degrees for blue, 1.53 degrees for green or 0.96 degrees for red: they appeared to see colors in single pixels to some extent. This ability may compensate their rather low spatial resolution.

Animals↗
PubMed2000

Sound production and hearing in the blue cracker butterfly Hamadryas feronia (Lepidoptera, nymphalidae) from Venezuela.

Certain species of Hamadryas butterflies are known to use sounds during interactions with conspecifics. We have observed the behaviour associated with sound production and report on the acoustic characteristics of these sounds and on the anatomy and physiology of the hearing organ in one species, Hamadryas feronia, from Venezuela. Our observations confirm previous reports that males of this species will take flight from their tree perch when they detect a passing conspecific (male or female) and, during the chase, produce clicking sounds. Our analyses of both hand-held males and those flying in the field show that the sounds are short (approximately 0.5 s) trains of intense (approximately 80-100 dB SPL at 10 cm) and brief (2-3 ms) double-component clicks, exhibiting a broad frequency spectrum with a peak energy around 13-15 kHz. Our preliminary results on the mechanism of sound production showed that males can produce clicks using only one wing, thus contradicting a previous hypothesis that it is a percussive mechanism. The organ of hearing is believed to be Vogel's organ, which is located at the base of the forewing subcostal and cubital veins. Vogel's organ consists of a thinned region of exoskeleton (the tympanum) bordered by a rigid chitinous ring; associated with its inner surface are three chordotonal sensory organs and enlarged tracheae. The largest chordotonal organ attaches to a sclerite positioned near the center of the eardrum and possesses more than 110 scolopidial units. The two smaller organs attach to the perimeter of the membrane. Extracellular recordings from the nerve branch innervating the largest chordotonal organ confirm auditory sensitivity with a threshold of 68 dB SPL at the best frequency of 1.75 kHz. Hence, the clicks with peak energy around 14 kHz are acoustically mismatched to the best frequencies of the ear. However, the clicks are broad-banded and even at 1-2 kHz, far from the peak frequency, the energy is sufficient such that the butterflies can easily hear each other at the close distances at which they interact (less than 30 cm). In H. feronia, Vogel's organ meets the anatomical and functional criteria for being recognized as a typical insect tympanal ear.

Acoustics↗
PubMed2001

Host-plant-derived variation in ultraviolet wing patterns influences mate selection by male butterflies.

We report on the first case in which sequestered secondary plant compounds determine an insect's external appearance in the ultraviolet spectrum and thereby influence visually mediated mate choice. Larvae of the common blue butterfly Polyommatus icarus specifically sequester flavonoids in different amounts and types, depending on the part or species of food plant. During late pupal development the majority of ultraviolet-absorbing flavonoids are deposited in the wing scales. The flavonoid content of the larval diet thereby determines ultraviolet wing patterns. In laboratory and field experiments, male butterflies clearly preferred flavonoid-rich, ultraviolet-absorbing female dummies. This preference is mediated visually by the ultraviolet pattern of the wings. Food-plant parts and species vary in value as a food source, so ultraviolet wing patterns may signal mate quality and are not a species-specific characteristic. We discuss the use of principal component analysis in analysing spectral data in the context of visual communication. We propose the alternative application of confidence intervals of averaged spectra as a novel straightforward statistical method for comparing groups of spectra in a manner that is independent of assumptions about the visual system of the receiver. In addition, they can be used to give confidence intervals to derived measures of colour such as quantum catch by photoreceptors.

Animals↗
PubMed2001

Polarisation-dependent colour vision in Papilio butterflies.

Butterflies of the genus Papilio have polarisation-sensitive photoreceptors in all regions of the eye, and different spectral types of receptor are sensitive to different e-vector orientations. We have studied the consequences of this eye design for colour vision in behavioural tests and find that Papilio spp. see false colours due to the polarisation of light. They discriminate between vertically and horizontally polarised light of the same colour in the contexts of oviposition and feeding. The discrimination depends on the spectral composition of the stimuli. In the blue and probably in the green range, discrimination does not depend on intensity. However, colour discrimination is influenced by polarisation. Thus, colour and polarisation processing are not separated in the visual system of Papilio spp. From these results, we propose hypotheses about which photoreceptors contribute to colour vision in Papilio spp. and what adaptational value such a system might have for the butterflies. Finally, we give examples for other eyes that have a similar structure.

Animals↗
PubMed2002

Does reflection polarization by plants influence colour perception in insects? Polarimetric measurements applied to a polarization-sensitive model retina of Papilio butterflies.

Using imaging polarimetry, we have measured some typical reflection-polarization patterns of plant surfaces (leaves and flowers) under different illuminations. Using a quantitative model to determine photon absorptions in the weakly polarization-sensitive (PS approximately 2) photoreceptors of Papilio butterflies, we have calculated the influence of reflection polarization on the colours of leaves and flowers perceived by PAPILIO: Compared with a retina containing polarization-blind colour receptors, the colour loci of specularly reflecting and, thus, strongly polarizing areas on a plant are slightly shifted, which could cause the perception of false colours. However, the colour of specularly reflecting surfaces is strongly masked by white glare, which may prevent the perception of polarization-induced hue shifts. Although the perception of polarizational false colours by Papilio butterflies was previously demonstrated with artificial, strongly colour-saturated and totally linearly polarized stimuli, we expect that the weak polarization sensitivity of Papilio photoreceptors hardly influences colour perception under natural conditions.

Animals↗
PubMed2002

Reflections on colourful ommatidia of butterfly eyes.

The eye shine of butterflies from a large number of ommatidia was observed with a modified epi-illumination apparatus equipped with an objective lens of large numerical aperture. A few representative cases are presented: the satyrine Bicyclus anynana, the heliconian Heliconius melpomene, the small white Pieris rapae and the small copper Lycaena phlaeas. The colour of the eye shine is determined mainly by the reflectance spectrum of the tapetal mirror and the transmittance spectrum of the photoreceptor screening pigments, if present near the light-guiding rhabdom. Reflectance spectra measured from individual ommatidia show that tapetum and screening pigments are co-expressed in fixed combinations, thus determining different ommatidial classes. The classes are distributed in an irregular pattern that can be rapidly assessed with the novel epi-illumination apparatus. Many butterfly species appear to have red-reflecting ommatidia, which is interpreted to indicate the presence of red-sensitive photoreceptors.

Animals↗
PubMed2006

Single-scale spectroscopy of structurally colored butterflies: measurements of quantified reflectance and transmittance.

Butterfly scales generally have very elaborate structures in submicrometer size, and some of them show distinctive optical effects through interaction with light. We describe two methods to quantitatively characterize the optical properties of the individual scales in those structurally colored butterflies. Owing to the small dimensions of the scale and to the fact that the reflection and transmission are very diffuse, it is generally difficult to accurately measure the reflectance and transmittance. To overcome these difficulties, we have carefully constructed an optical system including an integrating sphere and investigated variously colored nine kinds of scale. It is shown that the obtained spectra clearly characterize the optical differences among those structurally colored scales and also the differences between structural and pigmentary colors. Further, we have performed the angle-resolved measurement of the reflected light to characterize the spatial pattern of reflection, which is closely related to the mechanism of reflection.

Algorithms↗
PubMed2003

Color generation in butterfly wings and fabrication of such structures.

The wings of the morpho butterfly demonstrate an iridescent blue color over wide viewing angles. The mechanism that generates this blue color is studied. Optical and transmission electron microscopy of the butterfly wings reveal a complex wing structure with as many as 24 layers with periodic structures. The color generation is caused by interference of the multilayer structure as well as diffraction. It is possible to specially design grating structures so that a specific blue color can be generated and observed over wider angles. To demonstrate the grating concept, complex multigratings are designed and fabricated with electron-beam lithography. The light-diffraction properties of these gratings are presented.

Animals↗
PubMed2006

Molecular-level variation affects population growth in a butterfly metapopulation.

The dynamics of natural populations are thought to be dominated by demographic and environmental processes with little influence of intraspecific genetic variation and natural selection, apart from inbreeding depression possibly reducing population growth in small populations. Here we analyse hundreds of well-characterised local populations in a large metapopulation of the Glanville fritillary butterfly (Melitaea cinxia), which persists in a balance between stochastic local extinctions and recolonisations in a network of 4,000 discrete habitat patches. We show that the allelic composition of the glycolytic enzyme phosphoglucose isomerase (Pgi) has a significant effect on the growth of local populations, consistent with previously reported effects of allelic variation on flight metabolic performance and fecundity in the Glanville fritillary and Colias butterflies. The strength and the sign of the molecular effect on population growth are sensitive to the ecological context (the area and spatial connectivity of the habitat patches), which affects genotype-specific gene flow and the influence of migration on the dynamics of local populations. The biological significance of the results for Pgi is underscored by lack of any association between population growth and allelic variation at six other loci typed in the same material. In demonstrating, to our knowledge for the first time, that molecular variation in a candidate gene affects population growth, this study challenges the perception that differential performance of individual genotypes, leading to differential fitness, is irrelevant to population dynamics. These results also demonstrate that the spatial configuration of habitat and spatial dynamics of populations contribute to maintenance of Pgi polymorphism in this species.

Alleles↗
PubMed2006

A conserved supergene locus controls colour pattern diversity in Heliconius butterflies.

We studied whether similar developmental genetic mechanisms are involved in both convergent and divergent evolution. Mimetic insects are known for their diversity of patterns as well as their remarkable evolutionary convergence, and they have played an important role in controversies over the respective roles of selection and constraints in adaptive evolution. Here we contrast three butterfly species, all classic examples of Müllerian mimicry. We used a genetic linkage map to show that a locus, Yb, which controls the presence of a yellow band in geographic races of Heliconius melpomene, maps precisely to the same location as the locus Cr, which has very similar phenotypic effects in its co-mimic H. erato. Furthermore, the same genomic location acts as a "supergene", determining multiple sympatric morphs in a third species, H. numata. H. numata is a species with a very different phenotypic appearance, whose many forms mimic different unrelated ithomiine butterflies in the genus Melinaea. Other unlinked colour pattern loci map to a homologous linkage group in the co-mimics H. melpomene and H. erato, but they are not involved in mimetic polymorphism in H. numata. Hence, a single region from the multilocus colour pattern architecture of H. melpomene and H. erato appears to have gained control of the entire wing-pattern variability in H. numata, presumably as a result of selection for mimetic "supergene" polymorphism without intermediates. Although we cannot at this stage confirm the homology of the loci segregating in the three species, our results imply that a conserved yet relatively unconstrained mechanism underlying pattern switching can affect mimicry in radically different ways. We also show that adaptive evolution, both convergent and diversifying, can occur by the repeated involvement of the same genomic regions.

Animals↗
PubMed2005

Sexual dimorphism of short-wavelength photoreceptors in the small white butterfly, Pieris rapae crucivora.

The eyes of the female small white butterfly, Pieris rapae crucivora, are furnished with three classes of short-wavelength photoreceptors, with sensitivity peaks in the ultraviolet (UV) (lambda(max) = 360 nm), violet (V) (lambda(max) = 425 nm), and blue (B) (lambda(max) = 453 nm) wavelength range. Analyzing the spectral origin of the photoreceptors, we isolated three novel mRNAs encoding opsins corresponding to short-wavelength-absorbing visual pigments. We localized the opsin mRNAs in the retinal tissue and found that each of the short-wavelength-sensitive photoreceptor classes exclusively expresses one of the opsin mRNAs. We, accordingly, termed the visual pigments PrUV, PrV, and PrB, respectively. The eyes of the male small white butterfly also use three classes of short-wavelength photoreceptors that equally uniquely express PrUV, PrV, and PrB. However, whereas the spectral sensitivities of the male photoreceptors with PrUV and PrB closely correspond to those of the female, the male photoreceptor expressing PrV has a double-peaked blue (dB) spectral sensitivity, strongly deviating from the spectral sensitivity of the female V photoreceptor. The male eyes contain a pigment that distinctly fluoresces under blue-violet as well as UV excitation light. It coexists with the dB photoreceptors and presumably acts as a spectral filter with an absorbance spectrum peaking at 416 nm. The narrow-band spectral sensitivity of the male dB photoreceptors probably evolved to improve the discrimination of the different wing colors of male and female P. rapae crucivora in the short-wavelength region of the spectrum.

Animals↗
PubMed2004

An AFLP-based interspecific linkage map of sympatric, hybridizing Colias butterflies.

Colias eurytheme and C. philodice are sister species with broad sympatry in North America. They hybridize frequently and likely share a significant portion of their genomes through introgression. Both taxa have been ecologically well characterized and exploited to address a broad spectrum of evolutionary issues. Using AFLP markers, we constructed the first linkage map of Colias butterflies. The map is composed of 452 markers spanning 2541.7 cM distributed over 51 linkage groups (40 major groups and 11 small groups with 2-4 markers). Statistical tests indicate that these AFLP markers tend to cluster over the map, with the coefficient of variation of interval sizes being 1.236 (95% C.I. is 1.234-1.240). This nonrandom marker distribution can account for the nonequivalence between the number of linkage groups and the actual haploid chromosome number (N = 31). This study presents the initial step for further marker-assisted research on Colias butterflies, including QTL and introgression analyses. Further investigation of the genomes will help us understand better the roles of introgression and natural selection in the evolution of hybridizing species and devise more appropriate strategies to control these pests.

Animals↗
PubMed2003

Host plant use among closely related Anaea butterfly species (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae, Charaxinae).

There is a great number of Charaxinae (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) species in the tropics whose larvae feed on several plant families. However the genus Anaea is almost always associated with Croton species (Euphorbiaceae). This work describes patterns of host plant use by immature and adult abundance on different vertical strata of sympatric Anaea species in a forest of Southeastern Brazil. Quantitative samples of leaves were taken in April/1999 and May/2000 to collect eggs and larvae of four Anaea species on C. alchorneicarpus, C. floribundus and C. salutaris in a semideciduous forest. Sampled leaves were divided into three classes of plant phenological stage: saplings, shrubs and trees. The results showed that the butterfly species are segregating in host plant use on two scales: host plant species and plant phenological stages. C. alchorneicarpus was used by only one Anaea species, whereas C. floribundus was used by three species and C. salutaris by four Anaea species. There was one Anaea species concentrated on sapling, another on sapling/shrub and two others on shrub/tree leaves. Adults of Anaea were more frequent at canopy traps but there were no differences among species caught in traps at different vertical positions. This work supplements early studies on host plant use among Charaxinae species and it describes how a guild of closely related butterfly species may be organized in a complex tropical habitat.

Animals↗
PubMed2003

Perturbation of the wing color pattern of a swallowtail butterfly, Papilio xuthus, induced by acid carboxypeptidase.

Hypodermal injection of Toughmac-E, a digestive mixture composed of nine digestive components, or Molsin induced perturbation of the wing color pattern in 0- to 2-day-old pupae of Papilio xuthus, but had no effect on prepupae or 3- to 4-day-old pupae. The effective component in Toughmac-E was identified as Molsin, an acid carboxypeptidase of Aspergillus saitoi which specifically liberates tyrosine and phenylalanine from the C-terminal residues of proteins. The pattern perturbation occurred in either side of the fore- and hindwings of both sexes. When this enzyme was administered, stronger melanization than in the normal wings was found in the whole wings of most butterflies, but in other butterflies, the yellow region was enlarged. These findings suggest that the pattern perturbation was caused by changes in the levels of melanin and papiliochromes in scales. Melanin is a black pigment and papiliochromes are yellow pigments; their common precursor is dopamine. The normal pattern is formed by a predetermined balance of melanin and papiliochromes, whereas the deposit of an excess amount of tyrosine and/or phenylalanine disturbs this balance and results in perturbation of the color pattern. Administration of L-dopa or dopamine had no effect on the wing pattern. When the activity of an endogenous acid carboxypeptidase similar to Molsin appears in the early pupa, the summed activities of the endogenous and exogenous acid carboxypeptidases must induce a pattern perturbation. The relations between the endogenous acid carboxypeptidase and its probable substrate, the reserve protein, and the physiological roles of these relations in the regulation, utilization and excretion of amino acids are discussed.

Animals↗