[TABD] Mariposas neotropicales, pero pequenitos!

[James Mallet]

Es un escandalo:

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.

Pero el tamano es minISculo! Veanse! -- 
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jae.2010.79.issue-5/issuetoc

Jim

PS: Resumen de DeVries et al:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

________________________________

James Mallet
UCL
www.ucl.ac.uk/taxome/jim  
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