Witek Magdalena, Sliwinska Ewa B, Skórka Piotr, Nowicki Piotr, Settele Josef, Woyciechowski Michal
Institute of Environmental Sciences, Jagiellonian University, Gronostajowa 7, 30-387, Kraków, Poland.
Oecologia. 2006 Jul;148(4):729-33. doi: 10.1007/s00442-006-0404-5. Epub 2006 Mar 18.
The presence of annual and biennial individuals within the same population has been recently demonstrated in the myrmecophilous butterflies Maculinea rebeli and Maculinea alcon, which present a cuckoo strategy inside Myrmica nests, and Maculinea arion which is a predatory species. Here, we present field and laboratory data on polymorphic larval growth in two other predatory species of Maculinea: M. teleius and M. nausithous. Body mass distributions of pre-pupation larvae were bimodal in both species. These results point to the existence of larvae that develop in 1 or 2 years. We also showed that the probability of pupation depended on larval body mass. In the case of M. teleius, the critical body mass at which larvae have a 50% probability of pupation is about 80 mg. We suggest that polymorphism in Maculinea may have evolved as an adaptation to life in ant nests, a habitat which protects them from predators and provides food. However, the quality of this resource is highly variable and unpredictable. According to the bet-hedging hypothesis, if the habitat is unpredictable, females should have an advantage by producing more variable offspring. In the case of Maculinea butterflies, this may involve maintaining larvae that develop in 1 or 2 years.
最近在蚁栖蝴蝶丽纹灰蝶和阿尔康灰蝶中发现，同一群体内存在一年生和两年生个体，它们在蚁巢中采用拟寄生策略，还有捕食性物种阿里阿德涅灰蝶也是如此。在此，我们展示了关于另外两种捕食性黄斑蝶——泰莱黄斑蝶和瑙西托斯黄斑蝶幼虫多态生长的野外和实验室数据。两种蝶类化蛹前幼虫的体重分布均为双峰型。这些结果表明存在发育1年或2年的幼虫。我们还表明，化蛹概率取决于幼虫体重。以泰莱黄斑蝶为例，幼虫化蛹概率为50%时的临界体重约为80毫克。我们认为，黄斑蝶的多态性可能是作为对蚁巢生活的一种适应而进化出来的，蚁巢这种栖息地能保护它们免受捕食者侵害并提供食物。然而，这种资源的质量变化很大且不可预测。根据风险分摊假说，如果栖息地不可预测，雌性通过产生更多可变的后代可能会具有优势。对于黄斑蝶来说，这可能涉及维持发育1年或2年的幼虫。
