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Variability of the Structural Coloration in Two Butterfly Species with Different Prezygotic Mating Strategies.

ABSTRACT: Structural coloration variability was investigated in two Blue butterfly species that are common in Hungary. The males of Polyommatus icarus (Common Blue) and Plebejus argus (Silver-studded Blue) use their blue wing coloration for conspecific recognition. Despite living in the same type of habitat, these two species display differences in prezygotic mating strategy: the males of P. icarus are patrolling, while P. argus males have sedentary behavior. Therefore, the species-specific photonic nanoarchitecture, which is the source of the structural coloration, may have been subjected to different evolutionary effects. Despite the increasing interest in photonic nanoarchitectures of biological origin, there is a lack of studies focused on the biological variability of structural coloration that examine a statistically relevant number of individuals from the same species. To investigate possible structural color variation within the same species in populations separated by large geographical distances, climatic differences, or applied experimental conditions, one has to be able to compare these variations to the normal biological variability within a single population. The structural coloration of the four wings of 25 male individuals (100 samples for each species) was measured and compared using different light-collecting setups: perpendicular and with an integrating sphere. Significant differences were found in the near UV wavelength region that are perceptible by these polyommatine butterflies but are invisible to human observers. The differences are attributed to the differences in the photonic nanoarchitecture in the scales of these butterflies. Differences in the intensity of structural coloration were also observed and were tentatively attributed to the different prezygotic mating strategies of these insects. Despite the optical complexity of the scale covered butterfly wings, for sufficiently large sample batches, the averaged normal incidence measurements and the averaged measurements using an integrating sphere are in agreement.

SUBMITTER: Piszter G

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5104395 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Variability of the Structural Coloration in Two Butterfly Species with Different Prezygotic Mating Strategies.

Piszter Gábor G Kertész Krisztián K Bálint Zsolt Z Biró László Péter LP

PloS one 20161110 11

Structural coloration variability was investigated in two Blue butterfly species that are common in Hungary. The males of Polyommatus icarus (Common Blue) and Plebejus argus (Silver-studded Blue) use their blue wing coloration for conspecific recognition. Despite living in the same type of habitat, these two species display differences in prezygotic mating strategy: the males of P. icarus are patrolling, while P. argus males have sedentary behavior. Therefore, the species-specific photonic nanoa ...[more]

PMID: 27832120

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Project description:Recent studies on insect interactions on plants have revealed that herbivorous insects indirectly interact with each other through changes in plant traits following herbivory. However, less attention has been given to plant biomass relative to plant quality in relation to indirect interactions among herbivores. We explored the extent to which the larval food demand of two specialist butterflies (Sericinus montela and Atrophaneura alcinous) explains their interaction on a host plant, Aristolochia debilis. A laboratory experiment showed that plant mass consumption by A. alcinous larvae was 2.6 times greater than that by S. montela. We predicted that A. alcinous, which requires more food, is more vulnerable to food shortages than S. montela. In a cage experiment, an asymmetric interspecific interaction was detected between the two specialist butterflies; S. montela larval density significantly decreased the survival and prolonged the development time of A. alcinous, but A. alcinous density affected neither the survival nor the development time of S. montela. The prediction based on the food requirement was partly supported by the fact that increasing A. alcinous density likely caused a food shortage, which more negatively affected A. alcinous survival than S. montela survival. Conversely, increasing the density of S. montela did not reduce the remaining food quantity, suggesting that the negative effect of S. montela density on A. alcinous was unlikely to be due to food shortage. Although aristolochic acid I, a defensive chemical specific to Aristolochia plants, did not influence the food consumption or growth of either butterfly larva, unmeasured attributes of plant quality may have mediated an indirect interaction between the two butterflies. Consequently, our study suggests that not only the quality but also the quantity of plants should be considered to fully understand the characteristics, such as symmetry, of interspecific interactions among herbivorous insects on the same host plant.

Dataset Information

Variability of the Structural Coloration in Two Butterfly Species with Different Prezygotic Mating Strategies.

Publications

Variability of the Structural Coloration in Two Butterfly Species with Different Prezygotic Mating Strategies.

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