Cuticular colour reflects underlying architecture and is affected by a limiting resource

Evison, Sophie E. F.; Gallagher, Joe D.; Thompson, John; Siva‐Jothy, Michael T.; Armitage, Sophie A. O.

doi:10.1016/j.jinsphys.2016.11.005

Cited by 39 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…For example, in Lepidoptera moth species Galleria mellonella , melanic morphs were more resistant to fungal infection compared to non-melanic ones (Dubovskiy et al 2013 ). Similar results were reported for the mealworm beetle Tenebrio molitor (Evison et al 2017 ) and the mormon cricket Anabrus simplex (Bailey 2011 ). Also, an immune challenge in freshly emerged mealworm beetles reduced melanin pigment in adulthood (Kangassalo et al 2016 ); which indicates a clear relationship between immunity and melanisation.…”

Section: Insect Colouration: Types and Functionssupporting

confidence: 85%

Benefits of insect colours: a review from social insect studies

et al. 2020

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Insect colours assist in body protection, signalling, and physiological adaptations. Colours also convey multiple channels of information. These channels are valuable for species identification, distinguishing individual quality, and revealing ecological or evolutionary aspects of animals’ life. During recent years, the emerging interest in colour research has been raised in social hymenopterans such as ants, wasps, and bees. These insects provide important ecosystem services and many of those are model research organisms. Here we review benefits that various colour types give to social insects, summarize practical applications, and highlight further directions. Ants might use colours principally for camouflage, however the evolutionary function of colour in ants needs more attention; in case of melanin colouration there is evidence for its interrelation with thermoregulation and pathogen resistance. Colours in wasps and bees have confirmed linkages to thermoregulation, which is increasingly important in face of global climate change. Besides wasps use colours for various types of signalling. Colour variations of well chemically defended social insects are the mimetic model for unprotected organisms. Despite recent progress in molecular identification of species, colour variations are still widely in use for species identification. Therefore, further studies on variability is encouraged. Being closely interconnected with physiological and biochemical processes, insect colouration is a great source for finding new ecological indicators and biomarkers. Due to novel digital imaging techniques, software, and artificial intelligence there are emerging possibilities for new advances in this topic. Further colour research in social insects should consider specific features of sociality.

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Section: Insect Colouration: Types and Functionssupporting

confidence: 85%

Benefits of insect colours: a review from social insect studies

et al. 2020

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“…Proximately, the depletion of specific nutrients provides one plausible explanation for the observed sex-specific adult costs, as immune deployment did not reduce adult body condition. For instance, the shared reliance of immune defences and sexual coloration on the melanin-synthesis pathway may cause limitations of amino acids such as tyrosine (see also Hooper et al, 1999;Debecker et al, 2015;Evison et al, 2017). Furthermore, sex-specific allocation of particular nutrients for even the same suites of traits (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Immune deployment increases larval vulnerability to predators and inhibits adult life‐history traits in a dragonfly

Moore

Lis

Martin

2018

J of Evolutionary Biology

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While deploying immune defences early in ontogeny can trade-off with the production and maintenance of other important traits across the entire life cycle, it remains largely unexplored how features of the environment shape the magnitude or presence of these lifetime costs. Greater predation risk during the juvenile stage may particularly influence such costs by (1) magnifying the survival costs that arise from any handicap of juvenile avoidance traits and/or (2) intensifying allocation trade-offs with important adult traits. Here, we tested for predator-dependent costs of immune deployment within and across life stages using the dragonfly, Pachydiplax longipennis. We first examined how larval immune deployment affected two traits associated with larval vulnerability to predators: escape distance and foraging under predation risk. Larvae that were induced to mount an immune response had shorter escape distances but lower foraging activity in the presence of predator cues. We also induced immune responses in larvae and reared them through emergence in mesocosms that differed in the presence of large predatory dragonfly larvae (Aeshnidae spp.). Immune-challenged larvae had later emergence overall and lower survival in pools with predators. Immune-challenged males were also smaller at emergence and developed less sexually selected melanin wing coloration, but these effects were independent of predator treatment. Overall, these results highlight how mounting an immune defence early in ontogeny can have substantial ecological and physiological costs that manifest both within and across life stages.

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“…For example, melanin has a particularly high extinction coefficient, that is, very little of it is needed to achieve the same visual effect, as compared to pterins and carotenoids (Kayser, ). Also, distribution of the pigment in the body of the animal should matter: the costs of dark coloration may indeed be higher in such insects as crickets or beetles in which melanization affects massive cuticular structures (Roff & Fairbairn, ; Evison et al ., ), as compared to hairless larvae in which pigmentation is limited just to the body surface.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Weak and inconsistent associations between melanic darkness and fitness‐related traits in an insect

Sandre

Kaart

Morehouse

et al. 2018

J of Evolutionary Biology

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The idea that the fitness value of body coloration may be affected by biochemically mediated trade‐offs has received much research attention. For example, melanization is believed to interact with other fitness‐related traits via competition for substrates, costs associated with the synthesis of melanin or pleiotropic effects of the involved genes. However, genetic correlations between coloration and fitness‐related traits remain poorly understood. Here, we present a quantitative‐genetic study of a coloration trait correlated to melanin‐based cuticular darkness (‘darkness’, hereafter) in a geometrid moth, Ematurga atomaria. This species has considerable variation in larval appearance. We focus on correlations between larval darkness and fitness‐related growth performance traits. Both a half‐sib analysis and an ‘animal model’ approach revealed moderately high heritabilities of larval darkness and indices of growth performance. Heritability estimates of darkness derived from the animal model were, however, considerably higher than those based on the half‐sib model suggesting that the determination of coloration includes genetic interactions and epigenetic effects. Importantly, on the host plant with the largest sample size, we found no evidence for either genetic or environmental correlations between darkness and growth parameters. On an alternative host plant, there was some indication of positive genetic and negative environmental correlation between these traits. This shows that respective relationships are environment‐specific. Nevertheless, the overall pattern of weak and inconsistent correlations between larval coloration and growth parameters does not support universal trade‐offs between these traits and suggests that physiological costs of producing colour patterns do not necessarily interfere with adaptive evolution of coloration.

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Cuticular colour reflects underlying architecture and is affected by a limiting resource

Cited by 39 publications

References 43 publications

Benefits of insect colours: a review from social insect studies

Benefits of insect colours: a review from social insect studies

Immune deployment increases larval vulnerability to predators and inhibits adult life‐history traits in a dragonfly

Weak and inconsistent associations between melanic darkness and fitness‐related traits in an insect

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