Breuker, Casper J.
Brakefield, Paul M.
Gibbs, Melanie
[UCL]
We examined whether dispersal was associated with body and wing morphology and individual quality, and whether such an association was sex-specific, in the Glanville fritillary butterfly Melitaea cinxia (L.) in Paldiski on the north coast of Estonia. Body weight, size and shape of both fore- and hindwing, wing aspect ratio and wing loading were used as measures of body and wing morphology. Fluctuating asymmetry (FA) of wing shape was used as a measure of individual quality. Males and females did not differ in dispersal rates, despite large differences in overall morphology and FA. Females had a significantly higher wing loading and aspect ratio, but a lower FA than males. Females, but not males, that dispersed differed in forewing shape from those that did not disperse. The sex-specifity of the covariation between dispersal and forewing shape is most probably due to wing shape being associated with different life-history traits in both sexes, resulting in different selection pressures on wing shape in each of the sexes.
Bibliographic reference |
Breuker, Casper J. ; Brakefield, Paul M. ; Gibbs, Melanie. The association between wing morphology and dispersal is sex-specific in the glanville fritillary butterfly Melitaea cinxia (Lepidoptera : Nymphalidae). In: European Journal of Entomology, Vol. 104, no. 3, p. 445-452 (2007) |
Permanent URL |
http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/37354 |