{"id":1464,"date":"2015-11-14T05:02:11","date_gmt":"2015-11-14T05:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.science.nus.edu.sg\/?p=1464"},"modified":"2019-11-07T05:03:14","modified_gmt":"2019-11-07T05:03:14","slug":"how-a-butterfly-changes-its-spots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.science.nus.edu.sg\/blog\/2015\/11\/how-a-butterfly-changes-its-spots\/","title":{"rendered":"How a butterfly changes its spots"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span>14 Nov<\/span><span><span class=\"style3\"> 2015 NUS-led team is exploring mechanisms that lead to <\/span>changes in butterfly wing coloration in response to developmental temperature.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>A team led by Prof Ant\u00f3nia MONTEIRO from the Department of Biological Sciences in NUS has explored the detailed mechanisms of how temperature interacts with gene regulatory networks to affect the development and the appearance of organisms in adaptive ways. This understanding of mechanism helps them have a better understanding of the consequences that rapid environmental change may bring to organisms.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"style3\"><span>They found that the brightness of some butterfly eyespots is regulated by temperature, which regulates hormone levels. Higher temperatures lead to higher titers of a steroid hormone, which lead to larger and brighter eyespots. However, not all eyespots respond to temperature in the same way. Invariant eyespots become insensitive to temperature and hormones by down-regulating the steroid hormone receptor during their development. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>This is an exquisite organismal adaptation for these butterflies who develop different wing patterns in the dry and wet seasons, in response to temperature. Dry season butterflies, which develop at lower temperatures, reduce\u00a0the brightness of their hindwing eyespots\u00a0using the hormone signaling mechanism,\u00a0but keep their forewing eyespots bright by down-regulating the hormone receptor\u00a0in those eyespots only. This strategy to reduce brightness of the permanently\u00a0exposed hindwing eyespots and maintain the\u00a0brightness of the conditionally\u00a0displayed forewing eyespots is associated with the need to blend in during the\u00a0dry season\u00a0while maintaining some eyespots bright, year round, for use either\u00a0in mate attraction or predator deflection.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The team is currently exploring additional genetic and physiological mechanisms that lead to adaptive changes in morphology and behavior of butterflies in response to developmental temperature, and how this environmental sensitivity has evolved.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Ant\u00f3nia nov\" src=\"https:\/\/www.science.nus.edu.sg\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Ant\u00f3nia_nov.jpg\" width=\"216\" height=\"216\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Figure shows the<i> Bicyclus anynana<\/i>\u00a0dry season female butterfly (left) mates with a wet season male form. [Image credit: William Piel and Ant\u00f3nia Monteiro]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><strong>Reference<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Monteiro A, X Tong, A Bear, SF Liew, S Bhardwaj, BR Wasik, A Dinwiddie, C Bastianelli, WF Cheong, MR Wenk, H Cao, KL Prudic. \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/journals.plos.org\/plosgenetics\/article?id=10.1371\/journal.pgen.1005529\">Differential Expression of Ecdysone Receptor Leads to Variation in Phenotypic Plasticity across Serial Homologs<\/a>.\u201d PLOS Genetics (2015) 10.1371\/journal.pgen.1005529<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>14 Nov 2015 NUS-led team is exploring mechanisms that lead to changes in butterfly wing coloration in response to developmental&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1465,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biodiversity","category-research-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v23.6 (Yoast SEO v23.6) - 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