Behavioral Ecology Advance Access originally published online on June 4, 2007
Behavioral Ecology 2007 18(4):758-763; doi:10.1093/beheco/arm037
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Generation-dependent female choice: behavioral polyphenism in a bivoltine butterfly
Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
Address correspondence to M. Friberg. E-mail: magne.friberg{at}zoologi.su.se.
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Abstract |
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Climatic and biotic circumstances vary as seasons shift, and different cohorts of multivoltine species are likely subjected to different selection regimes. The bivoltine butterfly Leptidea reali (Réal's wood white; Lepidoptera: Pieridae) appears during May and June in central Sweden and has a partial second generation in late July. We manipulated both generations to appear simultaneously and performed laboratory mating experiments that showed the presence of a behavioral polyphenism in mating propensity, which is induced during the developmental stages. Females of the summer generation expressed higher mating propensities than spring generation females. Spring females showed an increase in mating propensity with increasing age, whereas summer females accepted most matings already when they were only 1 or 2 days old. It is likely that larval time constraints, a lower abundance of males and a lower risk of accepting a male of their univoltine sister species Leptidea sinapis (wood white), have relaxed selection on mate discrimination among summer generation females. A major challenge for future research is to further investigate the developmental pathways causing the polyphenism and the adaptive implications of cohort-dependent behaviors.
Key words: developmental plasticity, Lepidoptera: Pieridae, mating propensity, population density, sexual selection, time constraints.
Received 10 January 2007; revised 29 March 2007; accepted 2 April 2007.