Voltinism

Number of generations or broods of an organism per year

Voltinism is a term used in biology to indicate the number of broods or generations of an organism in a year. The term is most often applied to insects, and is particularly in use in sericulture, where silkworm varieties vary in their voltinism. Univoltine (monovoltine) – (adjective) referring to organisms having one brood or generation per year
Bivoltine (divoltine) – (adjective) referring to organisms having two broods or generations per year
Trivoltine – (adjective) referring to organisms having three broods or generations per year
Multivoltine (polyvoltine) – (adjective) referring to organisms having more than two broods or generations per year
Semivoltine – There are two meanings:
(biology) Less than univoltine; having a brood or generation less often than once per year
or (adjective) referring to organisms whose generation time is more than one year.

The speckled wood butterfly is univoltine in the northern part of its range, e. g. northern Scandinavia. Adults emerge in late spring, mate, and die shortly after laying eggs; their offspring will grow until pupation, enter diapause in anticipation of the winter, and emerge as adults the following year – thus resulting in a single generation of butterflies per year. In southern Scandinavia, the same species is bivoltine

The bee species Macrotera portalis is bivoltine, and is estimated to have about 2 or 3 broods annually. During winter, individuals remain in diapause, in their pharate or prepupal stage. This diapause stage continues until metamorphosis in the next spring or summer, whereupon the bees emerge as adults. Another example of a bivoltine species is Cyclosa turbinata which is known to reproduce once in the late spring and once again in the fall. The Dawson's burrowing bee is an example of a univoltine insect of the order Hymenoptera. The brood of one winter will remain dormant underground until the following winter, and then will surface from their burrows to mate once, and establish new nests.

The number of breeding cycles in a year is under genetic control in many species and they are evolved in response to the environment. Many phytophagous species that are dependent on seasonal plant resources are univoltine. Some such species have the ability to diapause for a large part of the year, typically during a cold winter. Others that bore in wood or other low grade, but plentiful, food material may spend nearly the entire year feeding, with only brief pupal, adult and egg stages to complete a univoltine life cycle. Yet other species that live in tropical regions with little seasonality may be highly multivoltine, with several generations feeding on constantly growing vegetation (such as some species of Saturniidae), or continually renewed detritus, such as Drosophila and many other genera of flies with a life cycle of just a week or two.