Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2020 Mar 30;11(4):214.
doi: 10.3390/insects11040214.

A Review of the Phenotypic Traits Associated with Insect Dispersal Polymorphism, and Experimental Designs for Sorting out Resident and Disperser Phenotypes

David Renault  1   2
Affiliations
Review

A Review of the Phenotypic Traits Associated with Insect Dispersal Polymorphism, and Experimental Designs for Sorting out Resident and Disperser Phenotypes

David Renault. Insects. .

Abstract

Dispersal represents a key life-history trait with several implications for the fitness of organisms, population dynamics and resilience, local adaptation, meta-population dynamics, range shifting, and biological invasions. Plastic and evolutionary changes of dispersal traits have been intensively studied over the past decades in entomology, in particular in wing-dimorphic insects for which literature reviews are available. Importantly, dispersal polymorphism also exists in wing-monomorphic and wingless insects, and except for butterflies, fewer syntheses are available. In this perspective, by integrating the very latest research in the fast moving field of insect dispersal ecology, this review article provides an overview of our current knowledge of dispersal polymorphism in insects. In a first part, some of the most often used experimental methodologies for the separation of dispersers and residents in wing-monomorphic and wingless insects are presented. Then, the existing knowledge on the morphological and life-history trait differences between resident and disperser phenotypes is synthetized. In a last part, the effects of range expansion on dispersal traits and performance is examined, in particular for insects from range edges and invasion fronts. Finally, some research perspectives are proposed in the last part of the review.

Keywords: fecundity; hostile matrix; life-history; mating; morphology; movement; range expansion; reproduction; wing-dimorphic; wing-monomorphic.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

References

    1. Johnson D.M., Horvitz C.C. Estimating postnatal dispersal: Tracking the unseen dispersers. Ecology. 2005;86:1185–1190. doi: 10.1890/04-0974. - DOI
    1. Ruf D., Dorn S., Mazzi D. Females leave home for sex: Natal dispersal in a parasitoid with complementary sex determination. Anim. Behav. 2011;81:1083–1089. doi: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2011.02.028. - DOI
    1. McCauley S.J. Body size and social dominance influence breeding dispersal in male Pachydiplax longipennis (Odonata) Ecol. Entomol. 2010;35:377–385. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2311.2010.01191.x. - DOI
    1. Ronce O. How does it feel to be like a rolling stone? Ten Questions about dispersal evolution. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. 2007;38:231–253. doi: 10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.38.091206.095611. - DOI
    1. Matthysen E. Multicausality of dispersal: A review. In: Clobert J., Baguette M., Benton T.G., Bullock J.M., editors. Dispersal Ecology and Evolution. Oxford University Press; Oxford, UK: 2012. pp. 3–18.

LinkOut - more resources