| Title: | Alternative developmental and transcriptomic responses to host plant water limitation in a butterfly metapopulation |
| Author(s): | Kahilainen A; Oostra V; Somervuo P; Minard G; Saastamoinen M; |
| Address: | "Organismal and Evolutionary Biology Research Programme, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 65, Helsinki, FIN-00014, Finland. Department of Evolution, Ecology and Behaviour, University of Liverpool, Crown Street, Liverpool, L69 7ZB, United Kingdom. Univ Lyon, Universite Claude Bernard Lyon 1, CNRS, INRAe, VetAgro Sup, UMR Ecologie Microbienne, Villeurbanne, France. Helsinki Institute of Life Science, University of Helsinki, Finland" |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 1365-294X (Electronic) 0962-1083 (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "Predicting how climate change affects biotic interactions poses a challenge. Plant-insect herbivore interactions are particularly sensitive to climate change, as climate-induced changes in plant quality cascade into the performance of insect herbivores. Whereas the immediate survival of herbivore individuals depends on plastic responses to climate change-induced nutritional stress, long-term population persistence via evolutionary adaptation requires genetic variation for these responses. To assess the prospects for population persistence under climate change, it is therefore crucial to characterize response mechanisms to climate change-induced stressors, and quantify their variability in natural populations. Here, we test developmental and transcriptomic responses to water limitation-induced host plant quality change in a Glanville fritillary butterfly (Melitaea cinxia) metapopulation. We combine nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy on the plant metabolome, larval developmental assays and an RNA sequencing analysis of the larval transcriptome. We observed that responses to feeding on water-limited plants, in which amino acids and aromatic compounds are enriched, showed marked variation within the metapopulation, with individuals of some families performing better on control and others on water-limited plants. The transcriptomic responses were concordant with the developmental responses: families exhibiting opposite developmental responses also produced opposite transcriptomic responses (e.g. in growth-associated transcripts). The divergent responses in both larval development and transcriptome are associated with differences between families in amino acid catabolism and storage protein production. The results reveal intrapopulation variability in plasticity, suggesting that the Finnish M. cinxia metapopulation harbours potential for buffering against drought-induced changes in host plant quality" |
| Keywords: | Humans Animals *Butterflies/physiology Transcriptome Larva/physiology Herbivory Plants Water insects lepidoptera life-history evolution phenotypic plasticity species interactions transcriptomics; |
| Notes: | "MedlineKahilainen, Aapo Oostra, Vicencio Somervuo, Panu Minard, Guillaume Saastamoinen, Marjo eng Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't England 2021/09/14 Mol Ecol. 2022 Nov; 31(22):5666-5683. doi: 10.1111/mec.16178. Epub 2021 Sep 27" |
