Re‐emergence and diversification of a specialized antennal lobe morphology in ithomiine butterflies*

• DOI: 10.1111/evo.14324
• Publication Date: 2021-08-12T09:00:49Z
• Authors: Billy J Morris; Antoine Couto; Asli Aydin; Stephen H Montgomery
• Keywords: Antennal lobe; Sensory cue; Sensory Processing

How an organism's sensory system functions is central to how it navigates its environment. The insect olfactory a prominent model for investigating ecological factors impact reception and processing. Notably, work in Lepidoptera led the discovery of vastly expanded structures, termed macroglomerular complexes (MGCs), within primary processing centre. MGCs typically process pheromonal cues, are usually larger males, provide classic examples variation size neural structures reflects importance cues. Though prevalent across moths, were lost during origin butterflies, consistent with evidence that courtship initiation butterflies primarily reliant on visual rather than long distance chemical signals. However, MGC was recently described species ithomiine butterfly, suggesting this once adaptation has re-emerged tribe. Here, we show MGC-like morphologies widely distributed ithomiines, but vary both their structure prevalence sexual dimorphism. Based interspecific suggest involved plant which have similarities constitution, co-evolved increased derived compounds.