Elsevier

Animal Behaviour

Volume 99, January 2015, Pages 123-130
Animal Behaviour

Plasticity in behavioural responses and resistance to temperature stress in Musca domestica

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2014.11.003Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Behavioural traits are important for the ability to cope with heat stress.

  • We investigated the behaviour of house flies from different thermal habitats.

  • Heat adapted flies could sustain activity longer at high temperatures.

  • Behavioural plasticity in flight and activity differed between populations.

  • Behavioural traits are involved in the thermal adaptation of the house fly.

Organisms can respond to and cope with stressful environments in a number of ways including behavioural, morphological and physiological adjustments. To understand the role of behavioural traits in thermal adaptations we compared heat resistance, locomotor (walking and flying) activity, flight performance and morphology of three European populations of Musca domestica (Diptera: Muscidae) originating from different thermal conditions (Spain, Switzerland and Denmark) at benign and stressful high temperatures. Spanish flies showed greater heat resistance than Swiss and Danish flies. Similarly, at the stressful high temperature Spanish flies flew the furthest and Danish flies the shortest distance. Neither body size nor wing loading affected flight performance, although flies with narrower wings tended to fly further (wing shape effect). Swiss flies were most active in terms of locomotor activity at the benign temperature, whereas the Spanish flies were able to stay active for longer at the stressful temperature. Population differences in behavioural traits and heat resistance were obtained using flies held for several generations in a laboratory common garden setting; therefore we suggest that exposure to and avoidance of high temperatures under natural conditions has been an important selective agent causing the suggested adaptive differentiation between the populations.

Section snippets

Fly Populations and Rearing Protocol

The fly populations used were all collected from the field in the summer and autumn of 2011 and had been kept in the laboratory for four to eight generations before being used. The Danish population of adult flies was collected at a pig farm in June 2011 from Djursland (56.38°N, 10.24°E), the Swiss population at a pig farm near the University of Zürich-Irchel (47.40°N, 8.55°E) and the Spanish population at Centre de Recerca en Sanitat Animal, Barcelona (41.30°N, 2.05°E) in October 2011. All

Results

Temperature data from climate stations close to the collection sites show that the northernmost Danish site had the lowest recorded temperature, lowest average low temperature and lowest average temperature (Table 1). The southernmost Spanish site had the highest average temperature and highest average high temperature. The Swiss site, located 569 m above sea level, had intermediate values except for highest recorded temperature.

Discussion

We compared three populations of M. domestica originating from different thermal habitats with respect to heat resistance and two behavioural traits (flight and locomotor activity, plus associated wing morphology) measured at both benign and stressful temperatures. The results suggest adaptive differentiation in heat resistance and behavioural traits between populations. The Spanish adult flies survived best at excessively high temperatures and Danish flies survived worst. These results are

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Danish Council for Independent Research, Natural Sciences (grant number 0602-01916B to A.K.), the Danish Natural Science Research Council (grant number 95095995 to C.P.), the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (grant number 244547 to B.H. and S.B.), and the Aalborg Zoo Conservation Foundation (grant number AZCF 03-04) (S.B.) and the Danish Council for Independent Research, Science Technology and Innovation (grant number 11-116256 to S.B.). The

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