Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 June 2019
It is known that diapause-inducing effect of ultra-long (16–18 hours and longer) nights on insects with a facultative winter diapause is often weaker than that of “natural” long (usually 10–14 hours) nights. The weak diapause-inducing effect of ultra-long nights can be explained, in particular, in the frames of the external coincidence model of photoperiodic time measurement with a circadian oscillator, which damps under ultra-long nights. Based on this model, it can be expected that (1) the first ultra-long night would have the same diapause-inducing effect as natural long night because the damping of the oscillator will not manifest itself before the next light–dark cycle and (2) the diapause-inducing effect would decrease with the increase in the number of succeeding ultra-long nights. However, these hypotheses have never been tested with any insect species. We investigated progeny diapause-inducing effect of single and multiple nights of different lengths on Trichogramma telengai Sorokina (Hymenoptera: Trichogrammatidae) pupae and adult females. The results of the study support the external coincidence model with a damping circadian oscillator and suggest that in T. telengai the oscillator damps out after one or two cycles.
Subject editor: Zhen Zou