Growth Regulation in the Larvae of the Lepidopteran Pieris brassicae: A Field Study.

ABSTRACT: Size and shape are important determinants of fitness in most living beings. Accordingly, the capacity of the organism to regulate size and shape during growth, containing the effects of developmental disturbances of different origin, is considered a key feature of the developmental system. In a recent study, through a geometric morphometric analysis on a laboratory-reared sample of the lepidopteran Pieris brassicae, we found evidence of regulatory mechanisms able to restrain size and shape variation, including bilateral fluctuating asymmetry, during larval development. However, the efficacy of the regulatory mechanism under greater environmental variation remains to be explored. Here, based on a field-reared sample of the same species, by adopting identical measurements of size and

SUBMITTER: Baraldi S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9965483 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature