Predicting how climate change affects biotic interactions poses a challenge. Plant–insect herbivore interactions are particularly sensitive to climate change, as climate-induced changes in plant quality cascade into the performance of insect herbivores. Whereas the immediate survival of herbivore individuals depends on plastic responses to climate change-induced nutritional stress, long-term population persistence via evolutionary adaptation requires genetic variation for these responses. To assess the prospects for population persistence under climate change, it is therefore crucial to characterize response mechanisms to climate change-induced stressors, and quantify their variability in natural populations. Here, we test developmental and transcriptomic responses to water limitation-induced host plant quality change in a Glanville fritillary butterfly (Melitaea cinxia) metapopulation. We combine nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy on the plant metabolome, larval developmental assays and an RNA sequencing analysis of the larval transcriptome. We observed that responses to feeding on water-limited plants, in which amino acids and aromatic compounds are enriched, showed marked variation within the metapopulation, with individuals of some families performing better on control and others on water-limited plants. The transcriptomic responses were concordant with the developmental responses: families exhibiting opposite developmental responses also produced opposite transcriptomic responses (e.g. in growth-associated transcripts). The divergent responses in both larval development and transcriptome are associated with differences between families in amino acid catabolism and storage protein production. The results reveal intrapopulation variability in plasticity, suggesting that the Finnish M. cinxia metapopulation harbours potential for buffering against drought-induced changes in host plant quality.

中文翻译：

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蝴蝶集合种群对寄主植物水分限制的替代发育和转录组学反应

预测气候变化如何影响生物相互作用是一项挑战。植物-昆虫食草动物的相互作用对气候变化特别敏感，因为气候引起的植物质量变化会影响昆虫食草动物的表现。虽然食草动物个体的即时生存取决于对气候变化引起的营养压力的塑性反应，但通过进化适应的长期种群持续存在需要这些反应的遗传变异。因此，为了评估气候变化下人口持续存在的前景，至关重要的是要描述对气候变化引起的压力源的反应机制，并量化它们在自然种群中的变异性。这里，中华草木) 集合种群。我们结合了植物代谢组的核磁共振波谱、幼虫发育分析和幼虫转录组的 RNA 测序分析。我们观察到，以富含氨基酸和芳香族化合物的限水植物为食的反应在集合种群内表现出显着差异，一些家族的个体在控制方面表现更好，而其他家族的个体在限水植物上表现更好。转录组学反应与发育反应一致：表现出相反发育反应的家庭也产生相反的转录组学反应（例如，在生长相关的转录物中）。幼虫发育和转录组的不同反应与氨基酸分解代谢和储存蛋白产生的家族差异有关。米。cinxia集合种群具有缓冲干旱引起的寄主植物质量变化的潜力。