Flight muscle breakdown in the green-veined white butterfly, Pieris napi (Lepidoptera: Pieridae)

Title:

Flight muscle breakdown in the green-veined white butterfly, Pieris napi (Lepidoptera: Pieridae)

Creator:

Stjernholm, Fredirk and Karlsson , Bengt

Identifier:

https://cdk.lib.cas.cz/client/handle/uuid:7205bd42-126b-4c00-a9a9-208589d897f0
uuid:7205bd42-126b-4c00-a9a9-208589d897f0

Subject:

Pieridae, Pieris napi, flight performance, life history, and reproduction

Type:

article, model:article, and TEXT

Description:

Flight is important for insects but also incurs costs in terms of reduced reproductive reserves. Recent studies on butterflies have shown that thorax mass and nitrogen content decrease over the adult lifespan, suggesting that flight muscle breakdown may also occur in butterflies. However, unlike other insects known to resorb flight muscles, butterflies will continue to fly throughout the reproductive period. Nonetheless, use of nutrients from flight muscles for reproduction has the potential to improve the reproductive output considerably. In this study we have tested to what extent female Pieris napi L. (Pieridae) butterflies actually do breakdown flight muscles. By comparing muscle mass in recently emerged and older free-flying females we show that mass and nitrogen content of the two most important groups of flight muscles each decrease by more than 50% over the adult lifespan. The significance of this finding is discussed in relation to reproduction and flight in butterflies.

Language:

English

Rights:

http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/
policy:public

Source:

European Journal of Entomology | 2008 Volume:105 | Number:1

Harvested from:

CDK

Metadata only:

false