Polyphenism in Insects

Abstract

(Current Biology 21, R738–R749; September 27, 2011) The authors wish to make an important clarification regarding the above review article on insect polyphenism. In the text we used a passage from Ernst Mayr's classic 1963 book [1Mayr E. Animal Species and Evolution. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA1963Crossref Google Scholar] to help provide a historical context, noting that the study of phenotypic plasticity had fallen out of respectability and that with this statement Mayr helped return the subject to respectability. It has since come to our attention that our use of this passage could also be interpreted as a claim that Mayr coined the term “polyphenism.” This was certainly not our intention. As a point of fact, it was Charles Michener [2Michener C.D. Social polymorphism in Hymenoptera.Symp. R. Entomol. Soc. Lond. 1961; 1: 43-56Google Scholar], who first suggested the term “polyphenic” 2 years before Mayr's publication and should be credited with its origin. We greatly thank our colleague Meir Paul Pener for his keen attention to this matter. Polyphenism in InsectsSimpson et al.Current BiologySeptember 27, 2011In BriefPolyphenism is the phenomenon where two or more distinct phenotypes are produced by the same genotype. Examples of polyphenism provide some of the most compelling systems for the study of epigenetics. Polyphenisms are a major reason for the success of the insects, allowing them to partition life history stages (with larvae dedicated to feeding and growth, and adults dedicated to reproduction and dispersal), to adopt different phenotypes that best suit predictable environmental changes (seasonal morphs), to cope with temporally heterogeneous environments (dispersal morphs), and to partition labour within social groups (the castes of eusocial insects). Full-Text PDF Open Archive