Resource-based trade-offs and the adaptive significance of seasonal plasticity in butterfly wing melanism.

ABSTRACT: Phenotypic plasticity is the ability of an organism to alter its phenotype in response to environmental cues. This can be adaptive if the cues are reliable predictors of impending conditions and the alterations enhance the organism's ability to capitalize on those conditions. However, since traits do not exist in isolation but as part of larger interdependent systems of traits (phenotypic integration), trade-offs between correlated plastic traits can make phenotypic plasticity non- or maladaptive. We examine this problem in the seasonally plastic wing melanism of a pierid (Order Lepidoptera, Family Pieridae) butterfly, Pieris rapae L. Several wing pattern traits are more melanized in colder than in warmer seasons, resulting in effective thermoregulation through solar absorption. How

SUBMITTER: Stoehr AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11063730 | biostudies-literature | 2024 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature