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Es un escandalo: <br><br>
La publicacion reciente de Phil DeVries et al. sobre el comportamiento de
vuelo, morfologia de mariposas, y ecologia es muy interesante. Tambien,
la revista Journal of Animal Ecology ha utilisado la foto lindisima de
DeVries et al. de especies de Morpho como advertencia de la
revista. <br><br>
Pero el tamano es minISculo! Veanse! --
<a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jae.2010.79.issue-5/issuetoc" eudora="autourl">
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jae.2010.79.issue-5/issuetoc<br>
<br>
</a>Jim<br><br>
PS: Resumen de DeVries et al:<br><br>
DeVries, P. J., C. M. Penz, and R. I. Hill. 2010. Vertical distribution,
flight behaviour and evolution of wing morphology in Morpho butterflies.
Journal of Animal Ecology 79:1077-1085.<br><br>
Abstract: 1. Flight is a key innovation in the evolution of insects
that is crucial to their dispersal, migration, territoriality, courtship
and predator avoidance. Male butterflies have characteristic
territoriality and courtship flight behaviours, and females use a
characteristic flight behaviour when searching for host plants. This
implies that selection acts on wing morphology to maximize flight
performance for conducting important behaviours among sexes.<br><br>
2. Butterflies in the genus Morpho are obvious components of neotropical
forests, and many observations indicate that they show two broad
categories of flight behaviour and flight height. Although species can be
categorized as using gliding or flapping flight, and flying at either
canopy or understorey height, the association of flight behaviour and
flight height with wing shape evolution has never been explored.<br><br>
3. Two clades within Morpho differ in flight behaviour and height. Males
and females of one cladeinhabit the forest understorey and use flapping
flight, whereas in the other clade, males use gliding flight at canopy
level and females use flapping flight in both canopy and
understorey.<br><br>
4. We used independent contrasts to answer whether wing shape is
associated with flight behaviour and height. Given a single switch to
canopy habitation and gliding flight, we compared contrasts for the node
at which the switch to canopy flight occurred with the distribution of
values in the two focal clades. We found significant changes in wing
shape at the transition to canopy flight only in males, and no change in
size for either sex. A second node within the canopy clade suggests that
other factors may also be involved in wing shape evolution. Our results
reinforce the hypothesis that natural selection acts differently on male
and female butterfly wing shape and indicate that the transition to
canopy flight cannot explain all wing shape diversity in Morpho.<br><br>
5. This study provides a starting point for characterizing evolution of
wing morphology in forest butterflies in the contexts of habitat
selection and flight behaviour. Further, these observations suggest that
exploring wing shape evolution for canopy and understorey species in
other insects may help understand the effects of habitat destruction on
biological diversity. <br>
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<font face="Arial, Helvetica">________________________________<br><br>
James Mallet<br>
UCL<br>
<a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/taxome/jim" eudora="autourl">
www.ucl.ac.uk/taxome/jim</a></font> </body>
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