A Review on Dispersal Polymorphism in Wing-Dimorphic, Mono-Morphic, Wingless, and Range-Expanding Insects, and Experimental Designs for Sorting out Resident and Disperser Phenotypes

Abstract

Dispersal represents a key life-history trait with several implications for the fitness of organisms, population dynamics and resilience, local adaptation, meta-population dynamics, range shifting and biological invasions. Plastic and evolutionary changes of dispersal traits have been intensively studied over the past decades in entomology, in particular in wing-dimorphic insects for which literature reviews are available. Importantly, dispersal polymorphism also exists in wing-monomorphic and wingless insects, and except for butterflies, fewer syntheses are available. In this perspective, by integrating the very last research in the fast moving field of insect dispersal ecology, this review article provides an overview of our current knowledge of dispersal polymorphism in insects. After having provided a definition of the main terms characterising insects’ movements, some of the most often used experimental methodologies for the separation of dispersers and residents in wing-monomorphic and wingless insects are presented. The existing knowledge on the morphological and life-history trait differences between resident and disperser phenotypes is then synthetized. The fourth part examines the effects of range expansion on dispersal traits and performance, in particular for insects from range edges and invasion fronts. Finally, some research perspectives are proposed in the last part of the review.

Wing Dimorphism/polymorphism in True Bugs (Heteroptera) From a Functional Viewpoint: A review

“…(According to the same work, the family Veliidae is not monophyletic, so it is not a valid family.) Wing polymorphism is very widespread among the Gerridae and "Veliidae", and it received considerable attention focused mostly on gerrids : EKBLOM 1941;GUTHRIE 1959;ANDERSEN 1973ANDERSEN , 1993ANDERSEN , 2000VEPSÄLÄINEN 1971VEPSÄLÄINEN , 1974VEPSÄLÄINEN a,b, 1978VEPSÄLÄINEN and KRAJEWSKI 1974;JÄRVINEN and VEPSÄLÄINEN 1976;ZERA 1981ZERA , 1984ZERA et al1983 ;FAIRBAIRN 1986FAIRBAIRN , 1988SPENCE 1989;FAIRBAIRN and BUTLER 1990;KAITALA and HULDÉN 1990;ZERA and TIEBEL 1991;HARADA 1992;DINGLE 1992, 1993;HARADA and NUMATA 1993;INOUE and HARADA 1997;HARADA et al 1997HARADA et al , 2005HARADA et al , 2011HARADA and TANEDA 1998;HARADA and SPENCE 2000;AHLROTH et al 2001;KISHI et al 2003;SPENCE and ANDERSON 2003;PFENNING and POETHKE 2006;GOODWYN-FUJISAKI 2007;HARADA and NISHIMOTO 2007;PFENNING et al 2007PFENNING et al , 2008FAIRBAIRN and DESRANLEAU 2008;FAIRBAIRN and KING 2009;HAN 2020;HYUN and HAN 2021;and somewhat less on "veliids" : MURAJI et al 1989...…”

“…no maternal effects on the wing form are known among the heteropterans. The most important environmental factor affecting the wing form in gerromorph bugs is the photoperiod (VEPSÄLÄINEN 1971;ZERA et al 1983;MURAJI et al 1989;HARADA and NUMATA 1993;ZERA and TIEBEL 1991;INOUE and HARADA 1997;PFENNING and POETHKE 2006;GUDMUNDS et al 2022;) which results an apparent seasonal polymorphism, well documented in some northern temperate species (VEPSÄLÄINEN 1974b;JÄRVINEN and VEPSÄLÄINEN 1976;PFENNING and POETHKE 2006;PFENNING et al 2008). Critical daylength thresholds can differ greatly between different species, between different populations of the same species andpossiblyeven between the different individuals of the same population.…”

Range Expansion and Invasive Capacity of the Wing Di- and Polymorphic Insects: A Short Review

“…Behavioural polymorphismthe differences in the readiness to take flight and cover large distancescan be also very marked, but much more difficult to detect. A detailed discussion of this topic is presented by RENAULT (2020).…”

“…Research on wing polymorphism yielded many important results, and still there are some unanswered questions left. The accumulation of knowledge is marked by the series of review articles published from the midtwentieth century till nowadays (JOHNSON, 1963;ROFF, 1986;ROFF and FAIRBAIRN, 1991;ZERA and DENNO, 1997;RENAULT, 2020). Reviews covering only a selected taxonomic group (e.g.…”

“…Considering that substantial differences might occur in flight capability or flight behaviour of the full winged individuals, wing polymorphism has to be treated as a special case of a wider phenomenon, the dispersal polymorphism (HARRISON, 1980;RENAULT, 2020). The other types of dispersal polymorphism are not discussed here.…”