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Endogenous toxins and the coupling of gregariousness to conspicuousness in Argidae and Pergidae sawflies
Phytophagous insects tend to be either cryptic and solitary, or brightly colored and gregarious, as a defense against vertebrate predators. Here, we tested whether potent defensive chemicals produced de novo by larvae of Argidae and Pergidae sawflies have influenced the evolutionary relationship bet...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6281571/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30518939 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-35925-z |
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author | Boevé, Jean-Luc Nyman, Tommi Shinohara, Akihiko Schmidt, Stefan |
author_facet | Boevé, Jean-Luc Nyman, Tommi Shinohara, Akihiko Schmidt, Stefan |
author_sort | Boevé, Jean-Luc |
collection | PubMed |
description | Phytophagous insects tend to be either cryptic and solitary, or brightly colored and gregarious, as a defense against vertebrate predators. Here, we tested whether potent defensive chemicals produced de novo by larvae of Argidae and Pergidae sawflies have influenced the evolutionary relationship between larval appearance and levels of gregariousness. Phylogeny-based correlation analyses indicated only a weak trend for solitary species to be cryptic, and for gregarious ones to be conspicuous. Numerous Argidae were cryptic–solitary or conspicuous–gregarious, whereas most Pergidae were conspicuous–gregarious. Both families also included not truly gregarious but aggregated species, i.e. with individuals more evenly distributed on the host plant. By considering two specific morphological traits, predominant body coloration and contrasting spots on body, each one was (weakly) associated with appearance but none with gregariousness, which reflects the functional relevance of appearance as a whole. Furthermore, Argidae can display alternate appearances during successive larval instars. Finally, an independent contrasts test showed no obvious correlation between two major toxic peptides. Our results point towards diversely combined patterns of linked ecological traits in these insects. By assuming that warning coloration is more warranted against vertebrate than invertebrate predators, we suggest that the occurrence itself of toxins allowed this diversity via differing predator guilds and environmental factors, to which these insects were confronted during evolution. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6281571 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-62815712018-12-07 Endogenous toxins and the coupling of gregariousness to conspicuousness in Argidae and Pergidae sawflies Boevé, Jean-Luc Nyman, Tommi Shinohara, Akihiko Schmidt, Stefan Sci Rep Article Phytophagous insects tend to be either cryptic and solitary, or brightly colored and gregarious, as a defense against vertebrate predators. Here, we tested whether potent defensive chemicals produced de novo by larvae of Argidae and Pergidae sawflies have influenced the evolutionary relationship between larval appearance and levels of gregariousness. Phylogeny-based correlation analyses indicated only a weak trend for solitary species to be cryptic, and for gregarious ones to be conspicuous. Numerous Argidae were cryptic–solitary or conspicuous–gregarious, whereas most Pergidae were conspicuous–gregarious. Both families also included not truly gregarious but aggregated species, i.e. with individuals more evenly distributed on the host plant. By considering two specific morphological traits, predominant body coloration and contrasting spots on body, each one was (weakly) associated with appearance but none with gregariousness, which reflects the functional relevance of appearance as a whole. Furthermore, Argidae can display alternate appearances during successive larval instars. Finally, an independent contrasts test showed no obvious correlation between two major toxic peptides. Our results point towards diversely combined patterns of linked ecological traits in these insects. By assuming that warning coloration is more warranted against vertebrate than invertebrate predators, we suggest that the occurrence itself of toxins allowed this diversity via differing predator guilds and environmental factors, to which these insects were confronted during evolution. Nature Publishing Group UK 2018-12-05 /pmc/articles/PMC6281571/ /pubmed/30518939 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-35925-z Text en © The Author(s) 2018 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
spellingShingle | Article Boevé, Jean-Luc Nyman, Tommi Shinohara, Akihiko Schmidt, Stefan Endogenous toxins and the coupling of gregariousness to conspicuousness in Argidae and Pergidae sawflies |
title | Endogenous toxins and the coupling of gregariousness to conspicuousness in Argidae and Pergidae sawflies |
title_full | Endogenous toxins and the coupling of gregariousness to conspicuousness in Argidae and Pergidae sawflies |
title_fullStr | Endogenous toxins and the coupling of gregariousness to conspicuousness in Argidae and Pergidae sawflies |
title_full_unstemmed | Endogenous toxins and the coupling of gregariousness to conspicuousness in Argidae and Pergidae sawflies |
title_short | Endogenous toxins and the coupling of gregariousness to conspicuousness in Argidae and Pergidae sawflies |
title_sort | endogenous toxins and the coupling of gregariousness to conspicuousness in argidae and pergidae sawflies |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6281571/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30518939 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-35925-z |
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