Data from: On the fate of seasonally plastic traits in a rainforest butterfly under relaxed selection

Many organisms display phenotypic plasticity as adaptation to seasonal
environmental fluctuations. Often, such seasonal responses entails
plasticity of a whole suite of morphological and life-history traits that
together contribute to the adaptive phenotypes in the alternative
environments. While phenotypic plasticity in general is a well-studied
phenomenon, little is known about the evolutionary fate of plastic
responses if natural selection on plasticity is relaxed. Here, we study
whether the presumed ancestral seasonal plasticity of the rainforest
butterfly Bicyclus sanaos (Fabricius, 1793) is still retained despite the
fact that this species inhabits an environmentally stable habitat. Being
exposed to an atypical range of temperatures in the laboratory revealed
hidden reaction norms for several traits, including wing pattern. In
contrast, reproductive body allocation has lost the plastic response. In
the savannah butterfly, B. anynana (Butler, 1879), these traits show
strong developmental plasticity as an adaptation to the contrasting
environments of its seasonal habitat and they are coordinated via a common
developmental hormonal system. Our results for B. sanaos indicate that
such integration of plastic traits – as a result of past selection on
expressing a coordinated environmental response – can be broken when the
optimal reaction norms for those traits diverge in a new environment.