Male pheromone composition depends on larval but not adult diet in Heliconius melpomene

Abstract

Condition-dependent traits can act as honest signals of mate quality, with fitter individuals able to display preferred phenotypes. Nutrition is known to be an important determinant of individual condition, with diet known to affect many secondary sexual traits. In Heliconius butterflies, male chemical signalling plays an important role in female mate choice. Heliconius pheromones are sexually dimorphic, found only in mature males, but it is unclear what information they convey to the female. Here, we manipulate both the larval and adult diet of male Heliconius melpomene rosina to test for environmental effects on wing and genital pheromone production. We find no evidence that adult pollen consumption affects pheromone production in the first ten days after eclosion. We also find strong overlap in the chemical profiles of individuals reared on different larval host plants. However, individual compounds were found in different amounts between host plant treatments. Further electrophysiological and behavioural . CC-BY 4.0 International license It is made available under a (which was not peer-reviewed) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.The copyright holder for this preprint . http://dx

Species specificity and intraspecific variation in the chemical profiles of Heliconius butterflies across a large geographic range

“…One factor potentially involved in geographic variation is larval host plant use. Feeding on different host plants as a larvae affects the production of some minor components of both androconial and genital chemical bouquets (Darragh et al, 2019) . The major components, however, are unaffected by larval host plant, suggesting that any dietary precursors required for compound production are present in different Passiflora species (Darragh et al, 2019) .…”

“…Feeding on different host plants as a larvae affects the production of some minor components of both androconial and genital chemical bouquets (Darragh et al, 2019) . The major components, however, are unaffected by larval host plant, suggesting that any dietary precursors required for compound production are present in different Passiflora species (Darragh et al, 2019) . In Panama, H. cydno and H. melpomene both feed on P. menispermifolia (Merrill, Naisbit, Mallet, & Jiggins, 2013), and yet have different chemical profiles, highlighting that from the same precursors different species can produce different compounds.…”

A major locus controls a biologically active pheromone component inHeliconius melpomene

“…Data from (Darragh et al. ) indicate that larval diet does not affect the major compounds found in H. melpomene , suggesting that this dietary variation is unlikely to affect results. Newly eclosed adult butterflies were separated by sex to ensure virgin status and supplied with flowers from Psiguria warscewiczii , Psiguria triphylla , Gurania eriantha , Psychotria poeppigiana , Stachytarpheta mutabilis , and Lantana sp.…”

“…; Darragh et al. ), all collected as above. Samples were assessed using gas chromatography‐mass spectrometry (GC‐MS) with an Agilent 7890B gas chromatograph coupled with an Agilent 5977 mass spectrometer with electron ionization (Agilent Technologies, California, USA).…”

Clustering of loci controlling species differences in male chemical bouquets of sympatric Heliconius butterflies

“…DNA extraction, library preparation, and QTL map construction are detailed in Byers et al. (2020) and Darragh, et al., bioRxiv. Briefly, Qiagen DNeasy kits (Qiagen) were used for DNA extraction, and individuals then genotyped either by RAD‐seq or low‐coverage whole genome sequencing using nextera‐based libraries (Davey et al., 2017; Merrill et al., 2019; Picelli et al., 2014).…”