Reproducible phenotype alteration due to prolonged cooling of the pupae of Polyommatus icarus butterflies.

ABSTRACT: The phenotypic changes induced by prolonged cooling (2-12 weeks at 5 °C in the dark) of freshly formed Polyommatus icarus pupae were investigated. Cooling halted the imaginal development of pupae collected shortly after transformation from the larval stage. After cooling, the pupae were allowed to continue their developmental cycle. The wings of the eclosed specimens were investigated by optical microscopy, scanning and cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy, UV-VIS spectroscopy and microspectroscopy. The eclosed adults presented phenotypic alterations that reproduced results that we published previously for smaller groups of individuals remarkably well; these changes included i) a linear increase in the magnitude of quantified deviation from normal ventral wing patterns with inc

SUBMITTER: Piszter G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6876796 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature