Cross‐generational effects of temperature on flight performance, and associated life‐history traits in an insect

Abstract

Nongenetic parental effects may affect offspring phenotype, and in species with multiple generations per year, these effects may cause life-history traits to vary over the season. We investigated the effects of parental, offspring developmental and offspring adult temperatures on a suite of life-history traits in the globally invasive agricultural pest Grapholita molesta. A low parental temperature resulted in female offspring that developed faster at low developmental temperature compared with females whose parents were reared at high temperature. Furthermore, females whose parents were reared at low temperature were heavier and more fecund and had better flight abilities than females whose parents were reared at high temperature. In addition to these cross-generational effects, females developed at low temperature had similar flight abilities at low and high ambient temperatures, whereas females developed at high temperature had poorer flight abilities at low than at high ambient temperature. Our findings demonstrate a pronounced benefit of low parental temperature on offspring performance, as well as between-and within-generation effects of acclimation to low temperature. In cooler environments, the offspring generation is expected to develop more rapidly than the parental generation and to comprise more fecund and more dispersive females. By producing phenotypes that are adaptive to the conditions inducing them as well as heritable, cross-generational plasticity can influence the evolutionary trajectory of populations. The potential for short-term acclimation to low temperature may allow expanding insect populations to better cope with novel environments and may help to explain the spread and establishment of invasive species.

Effects of within-generation thermal history on flight performance ofCeratitis capitata: colder is better

“…First, we found that in C. capitata flight performance increased with increasing test temperature, largely as might be expected based on other previous examinations of insect flight (e.g. Frazier et al, 2008;Kristensen et al, 2008;Chidawanyika and Terblanche, 2011;Ferrer et al, 2013). A substantial influence of thermal history on adult flight performance was also found, with the major result being that cooler developmental temperatures resulted in improved flight ability at cooler test temperatures.…”

“…Berwaerts et al, 2002;San Martin y Gomez and Van Dyck, 2012;Ferrer et al, 2013), these effects are less straightforward than what might have been expected based on prior work from Drosophila species, for example. However, we employed a distinctly different approach to typical assessments of rearing temperature on fly morphology.…”

“…Two notable recent exceptions, however, include work by Frazier et al (Frazier et al, 2008) on Drosophila melanogaster and by Ferrer et al (Ferrer et al, 2013) on Grapholita molesta. Both of these studies focus on laboratory responses and show marked effects of developmental temperature on traits of adult flight performance.…”

“…Loeschcke and Hoffmann, 2007;Kristensen et al, 2008;Chidawanyika and Terblanche, 2011). Given that the studies by Frazier et al (Frazier et al, 2008) and Ferrer et al (Ferrer et al, 2013) could not fully assess potential trade-offs between elevated low temperature flight performance and high temperatures, this leaves the information from field assessments of acclimation responses by recapture at bait stations (e.g. Kristensen et al, 2008), which are not especially well linked to laboratory responses (discussed further in Sørensen et al, 2009;Chidawanyika and Terblanche, 2011).…”

Strong Costs and Benefits of Winter Acclimatization in Drosophila melanogaster

“…However, when cross-generational effects are important, environmental changes between generations, e.g. unpredictable changes in temperature, may result in plastic responses becoming maladaptive [43–45]. We observed cross-generational costs of winter acclimatization in egg-to-adult viability at high temperatures in the field flies.…”