Pests, Plagues & Politics Lecture 13 Insect Communication: Light and Sound Shows

1. Pests, Plagues & Politics Lecture 13 Insect Communication: Light and Sound Shows

2. Key Points: Insect Communication: Light and Sound Shows • Bioluminescence • Which orders use it? • How do they use it? • Sound Communication • Which order is best known for “singing” • Functions of acoustic behavior • Mechanisms for sound production • Temporal separation

3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnxkCX3tX1Q

4. Communication with LIGHT • Fireflies & Glow-worms • Misnomer • neither Fire, nor are they Flies (well, sometimes they are) • Coleoptera (Beetles) • families • Lampyridae • Phengodidae • Utilize bioluminescence for sexual communication. http://beneficialbugs.org/bugs/Firefly/boreal_firefly.htm

5. Communication with LIGHT • Bioluminescence • Nearly 100% of a firefy’s light is given off as light • Compare this to an incandescent light bulb, which gives off 10% light and 90% heat • The chemical reaction: • Understanding this chemistry led to the making of glowsticks!

6. Fireflies • Wonderful scientific names such as: • Photuris • “tail light”(photos = light - ouron = tail) • Photinus • “a little tail light” (diminutive form)

7. Fireflies • Courtship Signals • Flash patterns are species specific • Normally females (on the ground) signaling for flying males. • Females frequently wingless or even “larviform” as adults. Female Photinusbromleyi The Mating Game

9. Fireflies • Synchronous-Aggregate Flashers • S.E. Asia

10. Glow-Worms • Some are beetles - some are flies • ergo, the confusion of common names.

11. Glow-Worm (a fly)Arachnocampaluminosa- A fungus gnat from New Zealand

12. Glow-Worms Larvae create sticky mucous strings and light them up with their glowing tails to lure and trap other insects!

13. Glow-worm (a beetle) Phengodes sp. larva, Maryland

14. Frequently asked question • Why are there no fireflies in Oregon?? • ANSWER:There ARE fireflies in Oregon! Zarhipisintegripennis Pterotusobscuripennis

15. Oregon Glow-worms • Two beetle species in two different families • Zarhipisintegripennis (Phengodidae) • a predator of millipedes • light from each body segment • Pterotusobscuripennis(Lampyridae) • a predator of snails • light from terminal body segment • Bioluminescence from embryo-larva-larviform adult females (males do not “glow”)

16. Communication with Sound • “A great many insect species produce sound by means of special structures, but only a few, such as crickets, grasshoppers & cicadas, are heard by most people” • Borror & DeLong • The ORTHOPTERA • others: Coleoptera, Hymenoptera, Isoptera, Homoptera & Lepidoptera

17. Functions of Acoustic Behavior • REPRODUCTION • primarily for mate attraction &/or territorial display (much like birds) • REPELLENCY • Passalid beetles; hissing cockroach, et alia • DEFENSEALARMS • termites, et alia

18. Functions of Acoustic Behavior • FOOD GATHERING • Phonotaxis by parasitoids & predators • Female flies of the genus Ormia must find a specific cricket host on which to deposit their parasitic maggots. To reproduce, female flies must perform the same task as female crickets - to find a singing male cricket. • has led to the “development” of smart, silent, satellite male crickets.

19. Mechanisms for sound production • STRIDULATION • the rubbing of one body part against another • grasshoppers, beetles, ad infinitum • THE most common insect musical “instrument” • VIBRATION • of special membranes known as TYMBALS • cicadas, some leafhoppers, some moths • of wings or thorax • incidental sounds from many, many species.

20. Chirp Chirp! • Only the males chirp • There are special songs for courtship, fighting and sounding an alarm • Sense sound using tympani (hearing organs) in their front legs • Want to know the temp.? • Chirps/15 sec. + 40.

21. Mechanisms for sound production • STRIKING against a substrate • alarm calls of damp wood termites • EJECTION of air • death head moth, hissing cockroach

22. The most noted “singers” • The Orthopterans • grasshoppers - crickets - katydids • Stridulationis the primary mechanism • Two Song Types • “Calling” songs by males for females • “Fighting” songs by males for territorial defense

23. Temporal Song Separation • Night Singers • nearly all katydids • Day Singers • most grasshoppers • Day &/or Night Singers • most crickets

24. Chorus Singers • Cone-headed grasshoppers & tree crickets • More than two individuals singing simultaneously, with their sound pulses synchronized or alternating.

25. Neoconocephalusretusus Cone headed grasshopper

26. Gryllodessigillatis Tropical House Cricket

27. Gryllusfultoni Southern Wood Cricket

28. Oecanthuspini Pine TreeCricket

29. Neoxabeabipunctata Two spotted tree cricket

30. Pictonemobiushubbelli Hubbell’s Ground Cricket

31. Tidewater meadow cricket Conocephalusnigropleuroides

32. Conocephalusfasciatus Slender Meadow Katydid

33. Orchelimumsilvaticum Long-spurred MeadowKatydid

34. Orchelimumvulgare Common Meadow Katydid

35. Palmetto Conehead Belocephalussabalis

36. Key Points: Insect Communication: Light and Sound Shows • Bioluminescence • Which orders use it? • How do they use it? • Sound Communication • Which order is best known for “singing” • Functions of acoustic behavior • Mechanisms for sound production • Temporal separation

37. Cicadas en masse, Princeton, 2004