scholarly journals Cuticular Hydrocarbon Recognition in the Mating Behavior of Two Pissodes Species

Insects ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 217
Author(s):  
Ruixu Chen ◽  
Tian Xu ◽  
Dejun Hao ◽  
Stephen A. Teale

Two sibling weevil species, Pissodes strobi Peck and P. nemorensis Germar (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), can form reduced-fitness hybrids in the laboratory, but neither their premating isolation mechanisms nor mating behaviors are well-understood. Cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) have been reported as crucial chemical cues in mating recognition in many insects, including weevils, and, thus, may also mediate the mating behavior of P. strobi and P. nemorensis. We conducted a series of behavioral observations, bioassays, and chemical analyses to investigate the role of CHCs in their mating behavior. Copulation behavior of both species followed similar steps: approaching, mounting, tapping, aedeagus extrusion, and copulation. In P. strobi, hexane extraction significantly reduced the number of successful male copulations compared with freeze-killed females. Conversely, significantly fewer P. nemorensis males copulated with dead females compared with live females. No significant differences were detected among hexane-extracted, freeze-killed or recoated female carcasses to P. nemorensis. These findings suggested that female cuticular extracts contain important cues in mate recognition in P. strobi but not in P. nemorensis. We identified 21 CHCs from both species with variation in abundances between sexes and seasons. Discriminant analysis revealed incomplete overlap of CHC compositions in females of the two species in summer, when hybridization potentially occurs.

2021 ◽  
Vol 537 ◽  
pp. 151516
Author(s):  
Emily E. Waddell ◽  
Wendy E.D. Piniak ◽  
Kathleen A. Reinsel ◽  
James M. Welch

Chemoecology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roman Bucher ◽  
Laura M. Japke ◽  
Ayse Gül Ünlü ◽  
Florian Menzel

AbstractThe predator-predator naïveté hypothesis suggests that non-native predators benefit from being unknown to native predators, resulting in reduced intraguild interference with native predators. This novelty advantage should depend on the ability of native predators to recognize cues of non-native predators. Here, we compared ant aggression and lady beetle reaction in four native and the invasive lady beetle species Harmonia axyridis. In addition, we tested whether lady beetle cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) are involved in species recognition, which might explain naïveté if the invasive species has a specific CHC profile. To this end, we conducted behavioral assays confronting two native ant species with both living lady beetles and lady beetle elytra bearing or lacking CHCs of different lady beetle species. Finally, we characterized CHC profiles of the lady beetles using GC–MS. In general, the aggression of Lasius niger was more frequent than that of Myrmica rubra and L. niger aggression was more frequent towards most native lady beetle species compared to H. axyridis. The removal of CHCs from lady beetle elytra reduced aggression of both ant species. If CHCs of respective lady beetle species were added on cue-free elytra, natural strength of L. niger aggression could be restored. CHC analyses revealed a distinct cue composition for each lady beetle species. Our experiments demonstrate that the presence of chemical cues on the surface of lady beetles contribute to the strength of ant aggression against lady beetles. Reduced aggression of L. niger towards H. axyridis and reduced avoidance behavior in H. axyridis compared to the equally voracious C. septempunctata might improve the invasive lady beetle’s access to ant-tended aphids.


2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (46) ◽  
pp. E10879-E10887 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter R. Grant ◽  
B. Rosemary Grant

Global biodiversity is being degraded at an unprecedented rate, so it is important to preserve the potential for future speciation. Providing for the future requires understanding speciation as a contemporary ecological process. Phylogenetically young adaptive radiations are a good choice for detailed study because diversification is ongoing. A key question is how incipient species become reproductively isolated from each other. Barriers to gene exchange have been investigated experimentally in the laboratory and in the field, but little information exists from the quantitative study of mating patterns in nature. Although the degree to which genetic variation underlying mate-preference learning is unknown, we provide evidence that two species of Darwin’s finches imprint on morphological cues of their parents and mate assortatively. Statistical evidence of presumed imprinting is stronger for sons than for daughters and is stronger for imprinting on fathers than on mothers. In combination, morphology and species-specific song learned from the father constitute a barrier to interbreeding. The barrier becomes stronger the more the species diverge morphologically and ecologically. It occasionally breaks down, and the species hybridize. Hybridization is most likely to happen when species are similar to each other in adaptive morphological traits, e.g., body size and beak size and shape. Hybridization can lead to the formation of a new species reproductively isolated from the parental species as a result of sexual imprinting. Conservation of sufficiently diverse natural habitat is needed to sustain a large sample of extant biota and preserve the potential for future speciation.


Behaviour ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 94 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 183-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Drosopoulos

AbstractSome data on acoustic communication and mating behavior of two biparentally reproducing species and the clonally reproducing pseudogamous "species" of the genus Muellerianella are reported. Although bioacoustic differences were found in the calling songs between the species, these did not prevent pairforming. Also, differences in mating behavior, such as pre-copulation behavior, courtship activities, frequency and duration of copulation were not sufficient to prevent successful hybridization between both the two biparentally reproducing species and between each of these two species and the pseudogamous "species". The data reported here are related to other biological differences reported previously. According to these data there is some evidence that differences in acoustic communication and mating behavior between the two species are established by ecological influences which in turn have established analogous physiological requirements. These differences are rather weak isolating mechanisms. Regarding the behavioral relation of the pseudogamous species with males of the two parental species it was found that these females behave exactly as the females of M. fairmairei with which they coexist in the field. In interspecific crosses mechanical barriers to copulation are more efficient than courtship differences. Finally it is assumed that pseudogamy is a strong isolation mechanism between the not yet fully genetically differentiated bisexual species of Muellerianella.


2022 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
pp. 100926
Author(s):  
Huaihua Yu ◽  
Litao Wan ◽  
Yingying Peng ◽  
Dongxu Zhang ◽  
Wenjun Xu ◽  
...  

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