diapause

The insects in these urban spaces fly for longer into the fall than the same species in rural areas, and take longer to induce diapause, which is when they pause development and reduce feeding to survive the winter.

The data showed that the two species studied were typically flying days to weeks into the fall before inducing diapause in urban areas than in rural areas.

This enabled them to observe whether the offspring in the labs were exhibiting differences in their diapause induction time depending on where their insect parent was collected.

These researchers expect that these traits are not only heritable, but adaptive, as these insects inducing diapause later might be able to have an extra generation of offspring in the fall.