University of Massachusetts Medical School Faculty Publications
Title
Coldness triggers northward flight in remigrant monarch butterflies
UMMS Affiliation
Department of Neurobiology; Reppert Lab
Publication Date
2013-03-04
Document Type
Article
Disciplines
Behavioral Neurobiology | Neuroscience and Neurobiology
Abstract
Each fall, eastern North American monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) migrate from their northern range to their overwintering grounds in central Mexico [1-3]. Fall migrants are in reproductive diapause, and they use a time-compensated sun compass to navigate during the long journey south [4-6]. Eye-sensed directional cues from the daylight sky (e.g., the horizontal or azimuthal position of the sun) are integrated in the sun compass in the midbrain central complex region [7, 8]. Sun compass output is time compensated by circadian clocks in the antennae so that fall migrants can maintain a fixed flight direction south [9, 10]. In the spring, the same migrants remigrate northward to the southern United States to initiate the northern leg of the migration cycle. Here we show that spring remigrants also use an antenna-dependent time-compensated sun compass to direct their northward flight. Remarkably, fall migrants prematurely exposed to overwintering-like coldness reverse their flight orientation to the north. The temperature microenvironment at the overwintering site is essential for successful completion of the migration cycle, because without cold exposure, aged migrants continue to orient south. Our discovery that coldness triggers the northward flight direction in spring remigrants solves one of the long-standing mysteries of the monarch migration.
DOI of Published Version
10.1016/j.cub.2013.01.052
Source
Curr Biol. 2013 Mar 4;23(5):419-23. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2013.01.052. Link to article on publisher's site
Related Resources
Journal/Book/Conference Title
Current biology : CB
PubMed ID
23434279
Repository Citation
Guerra, Patrick A. and Reppert, Steven M., "Coldness triggers northward flight in remigrant monarch butterflies" (2013). University of Massachusetts Medical School Faculty Publications. 149.
https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/faculty_pubs/149