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. 2023 Jan 12;14(1):79.
doi: 10.3390/insects14010079.

Effects of Flight on Reproductive Development in Long-Winged Female Crickets (Velarifictorus aspersus Walker; Orthoptera: Gryllidae) with Differences in Flight Behavior

Ye-Song Ren  1 , Bin Zhang  1 , Yang Zeng  1 , Dao-Hong Zhu  1
Affiliations

Effects of Flight on Reproductive Development in Long-Winged Female Crickets (Velarifictorus aspersus Walker; Orthoptera: Gryllidae) with Differences in Flight Behavior

Ye-Song Ren et al. Insects. .

Abstract

A trade-off between the capacity for flight and reproduction has been documented extensively in wing polymorphic female insects, thereby supporting the possible fitness gain due to flightlessness. However, most of these studies were conducted without considering the effect of flight behavior. In the present study, we assessed the flight duration by long-winged (LW) females in the cricket species Velarifictorus aspersus on different days after adult emergence and examined the effect of flight on ovarian development in LW females with different flight capacities. Our results showed that the flight capacity increased with age and peaked after 5 days. In addition, the flight capacity varied among individuals, where most LW females could only take short flights (sustained flight time < 10 min) and only a few individuals could take long flights (sustained flight time > 20 min). In LW female crickets demonstrating only short flights, repeated flying for 30 or 60 min significantly promoted reproductive development. However, in those capable of long flights, reproductive development was affected only after a flight of 60 min. The flight muscles degraded after the start of rapid reproduction in those with both short and long flights. Our results indicated that the critical flight time for switching from flight to reproduction varies among LW V. aspersus female crickets with polymorphic flight behavior.

Keywords: flight behavior; flight muscle; migration; reproduction; trade-off.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no conflict of interest to declare.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Effect of age on the mean total flight time of LW females of V. asperses stimulated to fly in a 4 h period. Different letters indicate a significant difference between groups by post hoc multiple comparisons of the means, p < 0.05, n = 40 for each group.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Distribution of the maximum of single flight among individuals on different days after emergence.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Effect of flight of 30 or 60 min on flight muscle and ovarian development in short-fliers (A,C) or long-fliers (B,D) of V. aspersus. Different letters indicate a significant difference between groups by ANOVA, post-hoc multiple comparisons of the means, p < 0.05, n = 20 for each group.
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