Key Laboratory of Breeding and Utilization of Resource Insects of State Forestry Administration, Institute of Highland Forest Science, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Kunming, P.R. China.
PLoS One. 2022 Jun 29;17(6):e0263709. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0263709. eCollection 2022.
This study examined the roles of visual and olfactory responses during foraging and courtship in butterfly Papilio xuthus. P. xuthus showed obvious orientation to color in the range of 350-500 nm. Visits of P. xuthus females and males to blue, purple, and red artificial cloth flowers were ♀ 54.90% and ♂ 39.22%, ♀ 19.61% and ♂ 35.29%, and ♀ 9.80% and ♂ 19.61%, respectively. Application of 10% honey on these artificial flowers resulted in an increase of 3.41 and 3.26 fold in flower visits by the butterfly compared to controls. When 10% honey water was sprayed on flower branches without colorful flowers, branch visiting was very low, only seven times for females and two times for males, indicating that colors might be more critical than odor for foraging even though visual and olfactory perceptions both play important roles during foraging. During courtship, four types of chasing were observed in a natural population of P. Xuthus; the four types are males chasing females (49%), males chasing males (25%), females chasing males (13%), and females chasing females (10%). However, when odorless artificial models of butterflies were used, no significant differences were observed among these types of chasing, indicating that olfactory perception was crucial for the butterfly during courtship. Profiling volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) and individual bioassays revealed that VOCs contents of butterflies were not related to recognizing sex partners; by contrast, some level of α-farnesene, increased the frequency of male chasing female. This could be due to that α-farnesene is easy to be detected by butterflies because of its volatility and higher content in female.
本研究考察了蝴蝶 Papilio xuthus 在觅食和求偶过程中视觉和嗅觉反应的作用。P. xuthus 在 350-500nm 范围内对颜色表现出明显的定向。P. xuthus 雌蝶和雄蝶对蓝色、紫色和红色人造布花的访问率分别为♀54.90%和♂39.22%、♀19.61%和♂35.29%、♀9.80%和♂19.61%。在这些人造花上应用 10%的蜂蜜会使蝴蝶对花的访问量增加 3.41 倍和 3.26 倍。当 10%的糖水喷洒在没有彩色花朵的花枝上时，花枝的访问量非常低，雌蝶只有 7 次，雄蝶只有 2 次，这表明颜色可能比气味更重要，即使在觅食过程中视觉和嗅觉都发挥着重要作用。在求偶过程中，在 P. Xuthus 的自然种群中观察到了四种追逐类型；这四种类型是雄蝶追逐雌蝶（49%）、雄蝶追逐雄蝶（25%）、雌蝶追逐雄蝶（13%）和雌蝶追逐雌蝶（10%）。然而，当使用无味的蝴蝶人工模型时，没有观察到这些追逐类型之间有显著差异，这表明嗅觉对蝴蝶在求偶过程中至关重要。分析挥发性有机化合物（VOC）和个体生物测定表明，蝴蝶的 VOC 含量与识别性伴侣无关；相反，一定水平的α-法尼烯，增加了雄蝶追逐雌蝶的频率。这可能是因为α-法尼烯由于其挥发性和在雌蝶中的含量较高，很容易被蝴蝶察觉。
