Data for: Synchronous seasonal plasticity in colouration, behaviour, and visual gene expression in a wild butterfly population

This data corresponds to the paper: "Synchronous seasonal plasticity
in colouration, behaviour, and visual gene expression in a wild butterfly
population." It contains multiple spreadsheets with behavioral data,
wing reflectance measurements, qualitative wing characteristics, real-time
quantitative PCR results, and primer effiency data. We investigate if
there are covarying seasonal changes to morphology, behaviour, and the
visual system in the seasonally plastic butterfly Junonia coenia.
Wild, native butterflies in tallgrass prairies were collected and observed
during their flight period (May to November) from 2018 to 2021. We found
at our field sites in northwest Arkansas, more J. coenia exhibit seasonal
dark wing patterns in September and October compared to butterflies
collected in previous months, independent of sex. This change in wing
pattern correlates to an increase in observed basking behaviour in the
field. Basking changed in both focal watches and point count surveys.
RNA-Seq analysis revealed eye tissues of dark fall animals and lighter
summer animals exhibit overall different patterns of gene expression,
including in visual system development genes, pigmentation genes, and
clock genes. Subsequent qPCR analysis of monthly variation in opsin gene
expression in eye tissues confirmed that opsin genes are not
differentially expressed throughout the year, though females have higher
expression of blue sensitive opsin than males. Subsequent analysis also
confirmed that eye tissue from fall caught animals has higher expression
levels of the clock gene period, a gene implicated in seasonal physiology
and circadian activity in other species. This concurrent seasonal
shift in colouration, behaviour, and underlying visual physiology
indicates that natural populations of  J. coenia undergoes a
complex shift in phenotype encompasses more than simple changes to
thermoregulation.