Hormones play an important role in the regulation of physiological, developmental and behavioural processes. Many of these mechanisms in insects, however, are still not well understood. One way to investigate hormonal regulation is to analyse gene expression patterns of hormones and their receptors by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). This method, however, requires stably expressed reference genes for normalisation. In the present study, we evaluated 11 candidate housekeeping genes as reference genes in samples of Lethrus apterus, an earth-boring beetle with biparental care, collected from a natural population. For identifying the most stable genes we used the following computational methods: geNorm, NormFinder, BestKeeper, comparative delta Ct method and RefFinder. Based on our results, the two body regions sampled (head and thorax) differ in which genes are most stably expressed. We identified two candidate reference genes for each region investigated: ribosomal protein L7A and RP18 in samples extracted from the head, and ribosomal protein L7A and RP4 extracted from the muscles of the thorax. Additionally, L7A and RP18 appear to be the best reference genes for normalisation in all samples irrespective of body region. These reference genes can be used to study the hormonal regulation of reproduction and parental care in Lethrus apterus in the future.
Abstract:Emergence phenology has been shown to advance considerably in the past decades in many lepidopterans. Noctuid moths constitute a species-rich family of lepidopterans with a unique diversity of life history traits driving climatic responsiveness. In our study we aim to assess the role of lifehistory and ecological traits in climatic responsiveness of noctuid moths (Noctuidae) with a control for phylogenetic dependence. We used a longterm dataset of European noctuid moths collected by a light-trap in NorthEastern Hungary. As the study site is located in the intersection of several biogeographical zones harbouring a large number of noctuid moth species, our dataset provides a unique possibility to investigate the moths' climatic sensitivity. To estimate the role of life-history traits and ecological factors in driving lepidopterans' response to climatic trends, we employed three proxies related to the species' ecology (habitat affinity, food plant specialization and food type) and two robust types of life-history traits (migration strategy, and hibernation form). The degree of temporal shifts of various measures of emerging phenology was primarily related to hibernation stage, food type and migration strategy. Large-scale phylogenetic relatedness exerted little constraint in all models fitted on all measures of capture dates. Our results imply that noctuid moths overwintering as adults exhibited greater degrees of phenological shifts than species hibernating as larvae or pupae. It follows that this group is forced to hibernate as imagos in our climate and the prolonged autumnal activities of the last emerging individuals might be interpreted as a return Page 1 of 44Oikos
Recent studies demonstrated that the Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui), a cosmopolitan diurnal butterfly performs long-range migration between subtropical Africa and north-western Europe, covered by individuals belonging to up to six generations. Here we analyze temporal patterns of complete annual migratory activity of the Painted Lady in Hungary, located in its Central European migratory route, almost completely unstudied before. To do so, we used field occurrence data collected between 2000 and 2019 and estimated temporal patterns in migratory activity by fitting kernel density functions on the daily mean number of individuals and observation frequency. The temporal distributions of kernel density estimates were analyzed as a function of time and key climatic predictors of the study area. We found that (i) the timing of spring arrivals has been advancing; (ii) the relative intensity of the first and last migratory peaks of the Painted Lady significantly increased during the past decades; and (iii) intensity of the last migratory peak is related to the mean temperature of the previous month, inferring that the migration is shifting to earlier dates and their volume of the migration has substantially intensified, evoking mutually nonexclusive, competing hypotheses. Our study indicates the strengthening migration activities of a southerly distributed, long-distance migrant diurnal butterfly, most probably linked to the northward shift of wintering areas induced by warming trends of the southern parts of Europe. However, the complexity of the likely processes leading to changing migratory strategies calls up for further research in both breeding and wintering areas.
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