Melanie Gibbs

Costs of dispersal

Dispersal costs can be classified into energetic, time, risk and opportunity costs and may be levied directly or deferred during departure, transfer and settlement. They may equally be incurred during life stages before the actual dispersal event through investments in special morphologies. Because costs will eventually determine the performance of dispersing individuals and the evolution of dispersal, we here provide an extensive review on the different cost types that occur during dispersal in a wide array of organisms, ranging from micro‐organisms to plants, invertebrates and vertebrates. In general, costs of transfer have been more widely documented in actively dispersing organisms, in contrast to a greater focus on costs during departure and settlement in plants and animals with a passive transfer phase. Costs related to the development of specific dispersal attributes appear to be much more prominent than previously accepted. Because costs induce trade‐offs, they give rise to covariation between dispersal and other life‐history traits at different scales of organismal organisation. The consequences of (i) the presence and magnitude of different costs during different phases of the dispersal process, and (ii) their internal organisation through covariation with other life‐history traits, are synthesised with respect to potential consequences for species conservation and the need for development of a new generation of spatial simulation models.

PIPITS: an automated pipeline for analyses of fungal internal transcribed spacer sequences from the Illumina sequencing platform.

Summary Studying fungal biodiversity using data generated from Illumina MiSeq sequencing platforms poses a number of bioinformatic challenges with the analysis typically involving a large number of tools for each analytical step from quality filtering to generating identified operational taxonomic unit (OTU) abundance tables. Here, we introduce PIPITS, an open‐source stand‐alone suite of software for automated processing of Illumina MiSeq sequences for fungal community analysis. PIPITS exploits a number of state of the art applications to process paired‐end reads from quality filtering to producing OTU abundance tables. We provide detailed descriptions of the pipeline and show its utility in the analysis of 9 396 092 sequences generated on the MiSeq platform from Illumina MiSeq. PIPITS is the first automated bioinformatics pipeline dedicated for fungal ITS sequences which incorporates ITSx to extract subregions of ITS and exploits the latest RDP Classifier to classify sequences against the curated UNITE fungal data set.

Torymus sinensis: a viable management option for the biological control of Dryocosmus kuriphilus in Europe?

The chestnut gall wasp Dryocosmus kuriphilus is a global pest of chestnut (Castanea spp). Established as a pest in the mid-twentieth century in Japan, Korea and North America, this species was first reported in Europe in 2002. Following the successful release of a biological control agent Torymus sinensis in Japan, this parasitoid species has been released in Italy since 2005. Here we discuss the potential of T. sinensis as a viable management option for the biological control of D. kuriphilus in central Europe. We suggest that more consideration should be given to determining, (i) the conditions under which T. sinensis may attack alternative native gall wasp hosts and (ii) the likelihood of hybridization of this species with native Torymus. Both issues are central to predicting unassisted range expansion by released T. sinensis, and to assess the environmental risks associated with a more widespread release of this species in Europe.

Butterfly flight activity affects reproductive performance and longevity relative to landscape structure.

Due to an overlap in the resources used by the flight muscles with the resources used during egg production, it has been hypothesised that an increased dispersal in fragmented landscapes may result in a physiological trade-off between flight and reproduction. In a common garden experiment, we investigated the effects of increased flight on the reproductive output of female speckled wood butterflies (Pararge aegeria, L.) from closed continuous woodland populations versus open highly fragmented agricultural landscapes in central France. Our flight treatment significantly affected resource allocation to egg size, but had no effect on mean daily fecundity. This treatment effect was similar for females from the two landscapes of origin, and suggests that energetic costs associated with increased flight result in a decrease in resource allocation to egg provisioning. There was a landscape-specific effect of flight on longevity: flight reduced longevity by 21% in woodland females, but had no affect on agricultural females. This result suggests that woodland landscape females further compensate for excessive flight by redirecting resources away from somatic maintenance, resulting in reduced life spans. Our results strongly indicate that increased flight caused by changes in landscape structure may impact on key life history traits such as reproductive success and longevity.

Reproductive plasticity, oviposition site selection, and maternal effects in fragmented landscapes

Traditionally, evolutionary ecology and conservation biology have primarily been concerned with how environmental changes affect population size and genetic diversity. Recently, however, there has been a growing realization that phenotypic plasticity can have important consequences for the probability of population persistence, population growth, and evolution during rapid environmental change. Habitat fragmentation due to human activities is dramatically changing the ecological conditions of life for many organisms. In this review, we use examples from the literature to demonstrate that habitat fragmentation has important consequences on oviposition site selection in insects, with carryover effects on offspring survival and, therefore, population dynamics. We argue that plasticity in oviposition site selection and maternal effects on offspring phenotypes may be an important, yet underexplored, mechanism by which environmental conditions have consequences across generations. Without considering the impact of habitat fragmentation on oviposition site selection, it will be difficult to assess the effect of fragmentation on offspring fitness, and ultimately to understand the impact of anthropogenic-induced environmental change on population viability.

Reproductive plasticity, ovarian dynamics and maternal effects in response to temperature and flight in Pararge aegeria.

In nature, ovipositing females may be subjected to multiple extrinsic and intrinsic environmental factors simultaneously. To adequately assess a species response to environmental conditions during oviposition it may therefore be necessary to consider the interaction between multiple intrinsic and extrinsic factors simultaneously. Using the butterfly, Pararge aegeria, this study examined the combined effects of extrinsic (temperature and flight) and intrinsic (body mass and age) factors on ovarian dynamics, egg provisioning and reproductive output, and explored how these effects subsequently influenced offspring fitness when egg-stage development occurred in a low humidity environment. Both temperature- and flight-mediated plasticity in female reproductive output was observed, and there were strong temperature by flight interaction effects for the traits oocyte size and egg mass. As females aged, mean daily fecundity differed across temperature treatments, but not across flight treatments. Overall, temperature had more pronounced effects on ovarian dynamics than flight. Flight mainly influenced egg mass via changes in relative water content. A mismatch between the physiological response of females to high temperature and the requirements of their offspring had a negative impact on offspring fitness via effects on egg hatching success.

Ancient expansion of the hox cluster in lepidoptera generated four homeobox genes implicated in extra-embryonic tissue formation.

Gene duplications within the conserved Hox cluster are rare in animal evolution, but in Lepidoptera an array of divergent Hox-related genes (Shx genes) has been reported between pb and zen. Here, we use genome sequencing of five lepidopteran species (Polygonia c-album, Pararge aegeria, Callimorpha dominula, Cameraria ohridella, Hepialus sylvina) plus a caddisfly outgroup (Glyphotaelius pellucidus) to trace the evolution of the lepidopteran Shx genes. We demonstrate that Shx genes originated by tandem duplication of zen early in the evolution of large clade Ditrysia; Shx are not found in a caddisfly and a member of the basally diverging Hepialidae (swift moths). Four distinct Shx genes were generated early in ditrysian evolution, and were stably retained in all descendent Lepidoptera except the silkmoth which has additional duplications. Despite extensive sequence divergence, molecular modelling indicates that all four Shx genes have the potential to encode stable homeodomains. The four Shx genes have distinct spatiotemporal expression patterns in early development of the Speckled Wood butterfly (Pararge aegeria), with ShxC demarcating the future sites of extraembryonic tissue formation via strikingly localised maternal RNA in the oocyte. All four genes are also expressed in presumptive serosal cells, prior to the onset of zen expression. Lepidopteran Shx genes represent an unusual example of Hox cluster expansion and integration of novel genes into ancient developmental regulatory networks.

Unscrambling butterfly oogenesis

BackgroundButterflies are popular model organisms to study physiological mechanisms underlying variability in oogenesis and egg provisioning in response to environmental conditions. Nothing is known, however, about; the developmental mechanisms governing butterfly oogenesis, how polarity in the oocyte is established, or which particular maternal effect genes regulate early embryogenesis. To gain insights into these developmental mechanisms and to identify the conserved and divergent aspects of butterfly oogenesis, we analysed a de novo ovarian transcriptome of the Speckled Wood butterfly Pararge aegeria (L.), and compared the results with known model organisms such as Drosophila melanogaster and Bombyx mori.ResultsA total of 17306 contigs were annotated, with 30% possibly novel or highly divergent sequences observed. Pararge aegeria females expressed 74.5% of the genes that are known to be essential for D. melanogaster oogenesis. We discuss the genes involved in all aspects of oogenesis, including vitellogenesis and choriogenesis, plus those implicated in hormonal control of oogenesis and transgenerational hormonal effects in great detail. Compared to other insects, a number of significant differences were observed in; the genes involved in stem cell maintenance and differentiation in the germarium, establishment of oocyte polarity, and in several aspects of maternal regulation of zygotic development.ConclusionsThis study provides valuable resources to investigate a number of divergent aspects of butterfly oogenesis requiring further research. In order to fully unscramble butterfly oogenesis, we also now also have the resources to investigate expression patterns of oogenesis genes under a range of environmental conditions, and to establish their function.

Flight during oviposition reduces maternal egg provisioning and influences offspring development in Pararge aegeria (L.)

As a result of increased habitat fragmentation in anthropogenic landscapes, flying insects may be required to travel over larger distances in search of resources such as suitable host plants for oviposition. The oögenesis–flight syndrome hypothesis predicts that physiological constraints caused by an overlap in the resources used by thoracic muscles during flight and during oögenesis (e.g. carbohydrates, lipids and water) result in a resource trade‐off, with any resources used during flight no longer available for reproduction. Increased flight costs could therefore potentially result in a decrease in maternal provisioning of eggs. In the present study, the speckled wood butterfly Pararge aegeria (L.) is used to investigate whether increased flight during oviposition results in changes in maternal investment in eggs and whether this contributes to variation in the development of offspring in subsequent life stages. Forcing females to fly during oviposition directly influences egg size and embryonic development time, and indirectly influences (through changes in egg size) egg hatching success and larval development time. These effects are mediated through ‘selfish maternal effects’, with mothers forced to fly maximizing their fecundity at the expense of investment to individual egg size. The present study demonstrates that a change in maternal provisioning as a result of increased flight during oviposition has the potential to exert nongenetic cross‐generational fitness effects in P. aegeria. This could have important consequences for population dynamics, particularly in fragmented anthropogenic landscapes.

Development on drought-stressed host plants affects life history, flight morphology and reproductive output relative to landscape structure

With global climate change, rainfall is becoming more variable. Predicting the responses of species to changing rainfall levels is difficult because, for example in herbivorous species, these effects may be mediated indirectly through changes in host plant quality. Furthermore, species responses may result from a simultaneous interaction between rainfall levels and other environmental variables such as anthropogenic land use or habitat quality. In this eco‐evolutionary study, we examined how male and female Pararge aegeria (L.) from woodland and agricultural landscape populations were affected by the development on drought‐stressed host plants. Compared with individuals from woodland landscapes, when reared on drought‐stressed plants agricultural individuals had longer development times, reduced survival rates and lower adult body masses. Across both landscape types, growth on drought‐stressed plants resulted in males and females with low forewing aspect ratios and in females with lower wing loading and reduced fecundity. Development on drought‐stressed plants also had a landscape‐specific effect on reproductive output; agricultural females laid eggs that had a significantly lower hatching success. Overall, our results highlight several potential mechanisms by which low water availability, via changes in host plant quality, may differentially influence P. aegeria populations relative to landscape structure.