Photoperiodic Regulation of Reproductive Activity in Summer- and Autumn-Morph Butterflies of Polygonia c-aureum L

摘要

The Asian comma butterfly Polygonia c-aureum has seasonal morphs of summer- and autumn-types, the development of which is determined by photoperiod and temperature during larval stages in close relation to the determination of adult reproductive diapause. In this paper, we investigated how the period of reproductive diapause changes in response to photoperiodic conditions available after adult emergence by determining ovarian development in female butterflies of each morph-type. Females of autumn-morph types did not produce eggs for about 80 d under short-day conditions at 20°C. When they were transferred to long-day conditions at 20°C after emergence, however, these females began to accumulate yolk within 8 d, and in ovaries about 15 d later, thefemale possessed more than 3 eggs in each ovariole, totaling > 24 eggs. When females of the summer-morph type were transferred to short-day conditions at 20°C after emergence, their ovarian maturation was delayed and took about twice as long compared to that of females continuously exposed to long-day conditions. The maintenance of adult diapause- or non-diapause-type reproductive activity thus respectively requires short-or long-day conditions, suggesting that P. c-aureum is also responsive to photoperiod during its adult stages. http://zoolstud.sinica.edu.tw/Journals/48.3/291.pdf