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Light and dark rhythms of pupal eclosion and egg hatching in tropical stem borers’ moths

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Abstract

Different traits in insects such as locomotor activity, egg-hatching, emergence from puparia and oviposition follow light and dark rhythms. In noctuid stemborer moths, activity cycles of the adults linked to their reproductive traits concentrate at the first half of the night and some of them are highly species specific. However, little information is available on the light and dark rhythm of egg hatching in noctuid stemborer moths as compared to adult’s activities (emergence, oviposition and mating). The purpose of this study was to compare the light and dark rhythms of pupal eclosion and egg hatching, respectively, for four main species of Afro-tropical noctuid stemborers under 24 h light-dark cycle conditions. In contrast to pupal eclosion, egg-hatching showed to be less controlled by light and dark rhythms. This arrhythmic pattern on egg-hatching compared to pupal eclosion is discussed in terms of interspecific resource utilization within a community of lepidopteran stemborers sharing the same resource.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Fritz Schulthess for his critical review of the manuscript and English corrections.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Icipe, P.O. Box 30772-00100, Nairobi, Kenya

    Paul-André Calatayud, Peter Ahuya & Bruno Le Ru

  2. Laboratoire Evolution, Génomes, Comportement et Ecologie, IRD, CNRS, University Paris Saclay, 91198, Gif-sur-Yvette, France

    Paul-André Calatayud, François Rebaudo & Bruno Le Ru

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Conceived and designed the experiments: P-AC. Conducted the experiments: p.a. Analyzed the data: FR. Wrote the first draft of the manuscript: P-AC and FR. Contributed to the writing of the manuscript: P-AC, FR and BLR. All authors reviewed and approved of the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Paul-André Calatayud.

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Calatayud, PA., Rebaudo, F., Ahuya, P. et al. Light and dark rhythms of pupal eclosion and egg hatching in tropical stem borers’ moths. Phytoparasitica 48, 415–425 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12600-020-00805-8

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