Developmental and Phenotypic Responses to Photoperiod and Temperature in an Equatorial Montane Butterfly, Tatochila xanthodice (Lepidoptera: Pieridae)

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Abstract
Many extratropical pierine butterflies are multivoltine and have both seasonal phenotypes and facultative diapause under photoperiodic control. Studies of univoltine-monophenic populations of 2 Holarctic pierine species-complexes demonstrated the presence of latent polyphenisms. This situation is interpreted as evidence that they are descended from multivoltine-polyphenic ancestors. Endemic pierines which are multivoltine (apparently without diapause) but monophenic occur in montane and alpine South America. These populations are commonly thought to be descended from Pliocene and Pleistocene invaders from the Nearctic. Stock of an equatorial montane species, T. xanthodice, was collected in south-central Colombia and reared on strongly polyphenism- and diapause-inducing regimes previously used with Nearctic pierines. Neither phenotype nor development was perturbed by any treatments. Either T. xanthodice has secondarily lost its developmental flexibility or the conventional reconstruction of pierine history in South America requires rethinking. Comparative data on other tropical insects are inadequate for even a preliminary synthesis of phenotypic plasticity in the low latitude montane environment.

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