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Butterfly flight activity affects reproductive performance and longevity relative to landscape structure

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Abstract

Due to an overlap in the resources used by the flight muscles with the resources used during egg production, it has been hypothesised that an increased dispersal in fragmented landscapes may result in a physiological trade-off between flight and reproduction. In a common garden experiment, we investigated the effects of increased flight on the reproductive output of female speckled wood butterflies (Pararge aegeria, L.) from closed continuous woodland populations versus open highly fragmented agricultural landscapes in central France. Our flight treatment significantly affected resource allocation to egg size, but had no effect on mean daily fecundity. This treatment effect was similar for females from the two landscapes of origin, and suggests that energetic costs associated with increased flight result in a decrease in resource allocation to egg provisioning. There was a landscape-specific effect of flight on longevity: flight reduced longevity by 21% in woodland females, but had no affect on agricultural females. This result suggests that woodland landscape females further compensate for excessive flight by redirecting resources away from somatic maintenance, resulting in reduced life spans. Our results strongly indicate that increased flight caused by changes in landscape structure may impact on key life history traits such as reproductive success and longevity.

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Acknowledgments

Hubert Baltus helped with the butterfly rearing. Michel Pirnay, Jean-Pierre Motte and Marc Migon provided technical assistance. Sofie Vandewoestijne assisted with the field collection of butterflies. Casper J. Breuker wrote the software to measure the eggs, provided valuable comments, help with the figures and statistical advice. This is publication number BRC 176 of the Biodiversity Research Centre of the UCL. The research was supported by two research grants to H.V.D. (FSR06-grant of UCL, and FRFC 2.4595.07 and 2.4556.05 of the FNRS Fund for Scientific Research, Wallonia, Belgium). We declare that the experiments comply with the current laws of Belgium.

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  1. Behavioural Ecology and Conservation Group, Biodiversity Research Centre, Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL), Croix du Sud 4-5, 1348, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    Melanie Gibbs & Hans Van Dyck

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  1. Melanie Gibbs
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Correspondence to Hans Van Dyck.

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Communicated by Roland Brandl.

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Gibbs, M., Van Dyck, H. Butterfly flight activity affects reproductive performance and longevity relative to landscape structure. Oecologia 163, 341–350 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-010-1613-5

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