Ontogenetic shift from aposematism and gregariousness to crypsis in a Romaleid grasshopper

Despland, Emma

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0237594

Cited by 5 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 71 publications

(120 reference statements)

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“…This mechanism has been documented in caterpillars (Peterson, 1988;Roessingh, 1989;Fitzgerald, 1993b,a;Fitzgerald and Underwood, 1998;Ruf et al, 2001;Costa and Gotzek, 2003;Fitzgerald and Pescador-Rubio, 2011;Pescador-Rubio et al, 2011), beetle (Fitzgerald et al, 2004) and sawfly larvae (Costa and Louque, 2001). Other mechanism to maintain group cohesion include allomimesis (Despland et al, 2017) and processions (Fitzgerald, 2003) in caterpillars, and synchronization of movement (Despland and Simpson, 2006;Despland, 2020) in grasshopper nymphs. The existence of these behaviors underscores the benefits of cooperation, since they have clearly been shaped by natural selection to ensure that individuals do not get separated from the group (Hofmann et al, 2014).…”

Section: Natural History Of Larval Herdsmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…Another potential trait that would warrant further attention in these species is social immunity: does feeding on toxic plants protect larvae against pathogens (pharmacophagy) and help counter the higher disease risk associated with group-living (Costa, 2018)? Finally, this trait combination appears particularly frequent in early-succession or disturbed tropical habitats rather than in primary forest (Rathcke and Poole, 1975;Young and Moffett, 1979;Inouye and Johnson, 2005;Despland and Santacruz-Endara, 2016;Despland, 2020); and this habitat association would warrant further investigation.…”

Section: Cooperation In Integrated Suites Of Traitsmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Indeed, M. disstria have been shown to trade-off selectivity in foraging for the advantages of staying together (Santana et al, 2015). Similarly, gregarious grasshopper nymphs [Chromacris psittacus (Romaleidae)] have been shown to remain feeding on the same leaf rather than sampling multiple leaves and exhibiting choice like the solitary adults of their species (Despland, 2020). Mathematical models suggest that cooperation via information sharing can improve individual foraging success when food is scarce and scattered (e.g., eusocial hymenopterans, seabirds), but that social interactions do not improve individual foraging when it is abundant and scattered, as is generally the case for herbivores (Giraldeau and Caraco, 2000;Rubenstein and Abbot, 2017).…”

Section: Efficiency Of Foragingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They exhibit a suite of traits to counteract the associated low temperatures, including collective thermoregulation, dark coloration and dense setae (see Table 1). Another adaptive suite of traits is seen in tropical herding larvae, particularly in the Ithomiini and Romaleidae (Despland, 2020;Renteria et al): a phenotype including gregariousness and feeding on toxic plants, which provides larvae with both competitor-free space and with the potential for sequestering toxins for their own defense. Another potential trait that would warrant further attention in these species is social immunity: does feeding on toxic plants protect larvae against pathogens (pharmacophagy) and help counter the higher disease risk associated with group-living (Costa, 2018)?…”

Section: Cooperation In Integrated Suites Of Traitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Grouping and aposematism are frequently associated (Ruxton et al, 2019), and one potential evolutionary scenario, first proposed in locusts (Acrididae), suggests that insects feeding on toxic plants acquire warning color when bottom-up driven grouping makes crypsis impossible (Sword, 1999;Despland, 2005). Thus, the brightly colored nymphs of a Romaleid grasshopper are thought to remain in a herd to overcome plant defenses (see Table 2), and it's been suggested that this grouping facilitates the evolution of aposematism (Despland, 2020). A similar process could explain the behavior of diprionid sawflies: the chemically-defended larvae aggregate to overcome leaf toughness or to thermoregulate (Ghent, 1960;Fletcher, 2009) and adopt stereotyped behaviors including regurgitation and head-waving to warn predators that they are unprofitable prey (Codella and Raffa, 1993).…”

Section: Cooperation In Integrated Suites Of Traitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Selection Forces Driving Herding of Herbivorous Insect Larvae

Despland

2021

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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Herding behavior is widespread among herbivorous insect larvae across several orders. These larval societies represent one of several different forms of insect sociality that have historically received less attention than the well-known eusocial model but are showing us that social diversity in insects is broader than originally imagined. These alternative forms of sociality often focus attention on the ecology, rather than the genetics, of sociality. Indeed, mutually beneficial cooperation among individuals is increasingly recognized as important relative to relatedness in the evolution of sociality, and I will explore its role in larval insect herds. Larval herds vary in in the complexity of their social behavior but what they have in common includes exhibiting specialized social behaviors that are ineffective in isolated individuals but mutually beneficial in groups. They hence constitute cooperation with direct advantages that doesn’t require kinship between cooperators to be adaptive. Examples include: trail following, head-to-tail processions and other behaviors that keep groups together, huddling tightly to bask, synchronized biting and edge-feeding to overwhelm plant defenses, silk production for shelter building or covering plant trichomes and collective defensive behaviors like head-swaying. Various selective advantages to group living have been suggested and I propose that different benefits are at play in different taxa where herding has evolved independently. Proposed benefits include those relative to selection pressure from abiotic factors (e.g., thermoregulation), to bottom-up pressures from plants or to top-down pressures from natural enemies. The adaptive value of herding cooperation must be understood in the context of the organism’s niche and suite of traits. I propose several such suites in herbivorous larvae that occupy different niches. First, some herds aggregate to thermoregulate collectively, particularly in early spring feeders of the temperate zone. Second, other species aggregate to overwhelm host plant defenses, frequently observed in tropical species. Third, species that feed on toxic plants can aggregate to enhance the warning signal produced by aposematic coloration or stereotyped defensive behaviors. Finally, the combination of traits including gregariousness, conspicuous behavior and warning signals can be favored by a synergy between bottom-up and top-down selective forces. When larvae on toxic plants aggregate to overcome plant defenses, this grouping makes them conspicuous to predators and favors warning signals. I thus conclude that a single explanation is not sufficient for the broad range of herding behaviors that occurs in phylogenetically diverse insect larvae in different environments.

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Section: Natural History Of Larval Herdsmentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: Cooperation In Integrated Suites Of Traitsmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Efficiency Of Foragingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Cooperation In Integrated Suites Of Traitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Cooperation In Integrated Suites Of Traitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Selection Forces Driving Herding of Herbivorous Insect Larvae

Despland

2021

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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Nyctinastic leaf folding mimic reduces herbivory byChromacris trogongrasshoppers (Orthoptera:Romaleidae)

Bell

2023

Preprint

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Arachis pintoi(Fabaceae) is a common relative of the cultivated peanut, and folds its four leaflets up to look like one at night. The adaptive significance of this behavior (foliar nyctinasty) is unknown. To test the hypothesis that leaflet folding alone can deter herbivores, a leaf preference experiment was performed onChromacris trogongrasshoppers. Small oval cutouts were made from leaves of the grasshopper's preferred food source,Iochroma arborescens(Solanaceae), and were combined with small pieces of tape and dry grass to construct artificial leaves resembling the day and night form ofA. pintoi. In the experiment, groups of three grasshoppers were starved for 24 hours and then placed in petri dishes containing one closed and one open artificial leaf. After 30 six-hour trials, the average herbivory of open leaves was 12.3%, while closed leaves was 5.2% (p = 0.00145), indicating a significant preference for open leaves. This suggests that the folded configuration ofA. pintoileaves can be a defense against herbivory.

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How life became colourful: colour vision, aposematism, sexual selection, flowers, and fruits

Wiens,

Emberts

2024

Biological Reviews

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Plants and animals are often adorned with potentially conspicuous colours (e.g. red, yellow, orange, blue, purple). These include the dazzling colours of fruits and flowers, the brilliant warning colours of frogs, snakes, and invertebrates, and the spectacular sexually selected colours of insects, fish, birds, and lizards. Such signals are often thought to utilize pre‐existing sensitivities in the receiver's visual systems. This raises the question: what was the initial function of conspicuous colouration and colour vision? Here, we review the origins of colour vision, fruit, flowers, and aposematic and sexually selected colouration. We find that aposematic colouration is widely distributed across animals but relatively young, evolving only in the last ~150 million years (Myr). Sexually selected colouration in animals appears confined to arthropods and chordates, and is also relatively young (generally <100 Myr). Colourful flowers likely evolved ~200 million years ago (Mya), whereas colourful fruits/seeds likely evolved ~300 Mya. Colour vision (sensu lato) appears to be substantially older, and likely originated ~400–500 Mya in both arthropods and chordates. Thus, colour vision may have evolved long before extant lineages with fruit, flowers, aposematism, and sexual colour signals. We also find that there appears to have been an explosion of colour within the last ~100 Myr, including >200 origins of aposematic colouration across nine animal phyla and >100 origins of sexually selected colouration among arthropods and chordates.

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Ontogenetic shift from aposematism and gregariousness to crypsis in a Romaleid grasshopper

Cited by 5 publications

References 71 publications

Selection Forces Driving Herding of Herbivorous Insect Larvae

Selection Forces Driving Herding of Herbivorous Insect Larvae

Nyctinastic leaf folding mimic reduces herbivory byChromacris trogongrasshoppers (Orthoptera:Romaleidae)

How life became colourful: colour vision, aposematism, sexual selection, flowers, and fruits

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