Higher flight activity in the offspring of migrants compared to residents in a migratory insect

Migration has evolved among many animal taxa and migratory species are found across all major lineages. Insects are the most abundant and diverse terrestrial migrants, with trillions of animals migrating annually. Partial migration, where populations consist of resident and migratory individuals, is ubiquitous among many taxa. However, the underlying mechanisms are relatively poorly understood and may be driven by physiological, behavioural or genetic variation within populations. We investigated the differences in migratory tendency between migratory and resident phenotypes of the hoverfly, Episyrphus balteatus, using tethered flight mills. Further, to test whether migratory flight behaviour is heritable and disentangle the effects of environment during development, we compared the flight behaviour of laboratory-reared offspring of migrating, overwintering and summer animals. Offspring of migrants initiated more flights than those of resident individuals. Interestingly, there were no d...迁徙已在众多动物类群中演化形成，各大主要演化支系中均分布有迁徙物种。昆虫是陆生迁徙类群中数量最多、多样性最高的类群，每年有数万亿个体参与迁徙。部分迁徙——即种群由留居个体与迁徙个体共同组成——在诸多类群中广泛存在。然而，其背后的调控机制仍知之甚少，且可能受种群内生理、行为或遗传变异的驱动。本研究以黑带食蚜蝇（Episyrphus balteatus，hoverfly）的迁徙型与留居型表型为研究对象，借助吊飞飞行磨装置探究二者迁徙倾向的差异。此外，为验证迁徙飞行行为是否具有可遗传性，并厘清发育过程中环境因素的影响，我们比较了迁徙个体、越冬个体与夏季个体的实验室繁育后代的飞行行为。迁徙个体的后代相较于留居个体的后代，启动飞行的频次更高。值得注意的是，并未发现……