Double meaning of courtship song in a moth

Males use courtship signals to inform a conspecific female of their presence and/or quality, or, alternatively, to 'cheat' females by imitating the cues of a prey or predator. These signals have the single function of advertising for mating. Here, we show the dual functions of the courtshi...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inProceedings of the Royal Society. B, Biological sciences Vol. 281; no. 1789; pp. 1 - 8
Main Authors Nakano, Ryo, Ihara, Fumio, Mishiro, Koji, Toyama, Masatoshi, Toda, Satoshi
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published The Royal Society 22.08.2014
Subjects
Acoustic echoes
Bats
Courtship
Female animals
Insect flight
Male animals
Mating behavior
Moths
Scotophase
Ultrasonics
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Males use courtship signals to inform a conspecific female of their presence and/or quality, or, alternatively, to 'cheat' females by imitating the cues of a prey or predator. These signals have the single function of advertising for mating. Here, we show the dual functions of the courtship song in the yellow peach moth, Conogethes punctiferalis, whose males generate a series of short pulses and a subsequent long pulse in a song bout. Repulsive short pulses mimic the echolocation calls of sympatric horseshoe bats and disrupt the approach of male rivals to a female. The attractive long pulse does not mimic bat calls and specifically induces mate acceptance in the female, who raises her wings to facilitate copulation. These results demonstrate that moths can evolve both attractive acoustic signals and repulsive ones from cues that were originally used to identify predators and nonpredators, because the bat-like sounds disrupt rivals, and also support a hypothesis of signal evolution via receiver bias in moth acoustic communication that was driven by the initial evolution of hearing to perceive echolocating bat predators.
ISSN:0962-8452