Abstract
Behavioural plasticity can drive the evolution of new traits in animals. In oviparous species, plasticity in oviposition behaviour could promote the evolution of new egg traits by exposing them to different selective pressures in novel oviposition sites. Individual females of the predatory stink bug Podisus maculiventris are able to selectively colour their eggs depending on leaf side, laying lightly pigmented eggs on leaf undersides and more pigmented eggs, which are more resistant to ultraviolet (UV) radiation damage, on leaf tops. Here, we propose an evolutionary scenario for P. maculiventris egg pigmentation and its selective application. We experimentally tested the influence of several ecological factors that: (i) could have favoured a behavioural shift towards laying eggs on leaf tops and thus the evolution of a UV-protective egg pigment (i.e. exploitation of enemy-reduced space or a thermoregulatory benefit) and (ii) could have subsequently led to the evolution of selective pigment application (i.e. camouflage or costly pigment production). We found evidence that a higher predation pressure on leaf undersides could have caused a shift in oviposition effort towards leaf tops. We also found the first evidence of an insect egg pigment providing a thermoregulatory advantage. Our study contributes to an understanding of how plasticity in oviposition behaviour could shape the responses of organisms to ecological factors affecting their reproductive success, spurring the evolution of new morphological traits.
Highlights
Behaviour plays an important role in evolutionary processes
We addressed two main questions related to the evolution of selective egg coloration in P. maculiventris: (i) Why would it be adaptive to shift a higher proportion of oviposition effort to leaf tops? and (ii) Why would selective egg pigmentation evolve?
The goal of our study was to investigate a plausible evolutionary scenario for the egg coloration strategy of the predatory stink bug P. maculiventris, whereby behavioural plasticity in ancestral oviposition site selection could have driven the evolution of selective pigment application to eggs
Summary
Behaviour plays an important role in evolutionary processes. On the one hand, behavioural plasticity can buffer the rate of evolutionary change by allowing organisms to avoid environmental selective pressures by moving away from them [1]. They cannot respond to changes in mortality risk over time This set of circumstances has shaped the evolution of ‘be prepared’ strategies [5], involving the coevolution of maternal oviposition behaviour (e.g. selection of protected sites) [6,7,8] with egg morphology and physiology (e.g. colour, patterning, temperature/desiccation tolerance). Eggs of amphibian species that lay in concealed locations tend to have less melanin pigmentation than those of species that lay in open water where there are high levels of damaging ultraviolet (UV) radiation [9] In biological systems such as these, the evolution of new physiological or morphological traits of eggs may have originally been favoured by plasticity in oviposition behaviour, exposing them to novel selective pressures
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