Abstract
The ability to powered flight facilitated a great evolutionary success of insects and allowed them to occupy various ecological niches. In addition to primary tasks, wings are often involved in various premating behaviors, such as courtship songs and initiation of mating in flight. These specific implications require certain wing morphology, size, and shape. Although wing properties have been extensively studied in Drosophila, a comprehensive understanding of sexual shape dimorphisms and developmental plasticity in wing morphology is missing for other Diptera. To acquire this knowledge, we applied geometric morphometrics and analyzed wing shape in three dipteran species (Drosophila, Ceratitis, and Musca) raised in different environmental conditions. We extensively studied sexual dimorphism and impact of sex and environment on the adult wing morphology. We present allometric and non-allometric shape differences between males and females and show that wing shape is influenced by rearing conditions in a sex dependent manner. We determine common trends in shape alterations and show that the anterior and posterior crossveins are likely to be plastic regions changing substantially at different environmental conditions. We discuss our data in the light of vein development and hypothesize that the observed shape differences might recapitulate different mating behaviors and flight capabilities.
