Lipid Metabolism in Diapause

Organisms living in temperate and polar environments encounter seasonal fluctuations that entail changes in temperature, resource availability, and biotic interactions. Thus, adaptations for synchronizing the life cycle with essential resources and persisting through unfavorable conditions are critical. Diapause, a programmed period of developmental arrest and metabolic depression, is widely used by insects to survive winter and synchronize the life cycle. In some cases, insects spend over half the year (or in some cases, multiple years) in a nonfeeding diapause state. Thus, diapause is energetically challenging, and insects accumulate surplus energy stores and/or suppress metabolism to make it through the winter. As the most energy-dense, and often most abundant, energy reserve in insects, lipids play a central role in diapause energetics. In this chapter, we provide an overview of lipid metabolism in the context of diapause. First, as this is the only chapter in this book that covers diapause, we present some of the general features of diapause. We then discuss the role of lipids as an essential energy store during diapause, focusing on patterns of lipid accumulation before diapause and patterns of utilization during diapause. In the next section, we outline some other roles of lipids during diapause in addition to their role as an energy store. Finally, we end the chapter by discussing the molecular regulation of lipid metabolism in diapause, which has received increased attention in recent years.