Acoustic studies on the mechanism of sound production in the mating songs of the melon fly,Dacus cucurbitae Coquillett (Diptera: Tephritidae)

Abstract

-The sound production mechanism in the male mating songs for the melon fly Dacus cucurbitae Coquillett was acoustically investigated to determine whether sounds resulted from free wing-fanning or stridulation produced by contact between wing and abdominal pecten. Waveforms in the songs of normal (pecten-present) males showed more complex vibrations than those of pecten-removed males. The total harmonic distortion in normal songs was greater than that of the pecten-removed songs. Female (pecten-absent) songs showed different sound signatures on the oscillogram and frequency spectrum from normal male songs. The female songs had more harmonic components than the normal male songs. These results suggest that wing/pecten stridulation of normal male songs produces complicated wing oscillations with a small number of harmonics of near-periodic waveforms and a high harmonic distortion. They also suggest that the free wing-fanning observed during female and pecten-removed male songs produces simple and uniform wing oscillations with many harmonic contents of complex-periodic waveforms and low harmonic distortion. Despite the occurrence of some acoustic differences, pecten-removal did not positively influence the rate of copulation.

On the morphology and possible function of two putative vibroacoustic mechanisms in derbid planthoppers (Hemiptera: Fulgoromorpha: Derbidae)

“…Our observation of clumped plectral hairs, covered by crystallised secretions in several dried derbids ( Fig. 6D; Table S1), was also found in male tephritids (Kanmiya, 1988). This supports our speculative hypothesis that the organ may actually play a role in chemical signalling, although we cannot exclude the possibility that the "crystals" in derbids are in fact minute wax particles (see Section 4.6 below).…”

“…a pheromone) rather than in the production of sound, although this hypothesis should be treated as speculative in the absence of observations on live derbids. We base our hypothesis on a remarkably similar mechanism which exists in the tephritid fly Bactrocera cucurbitae (Coquillett, 1849) and its relatives (Kuba & Sokei, 1988), which was also initially thought to be a stridulatory organ (Monro, 1953;Kanmiya, 1988). In Bactrocera, the anal vein of the male mesothoracic wing is characterised by distinct microtrichia, opposed by long, erect hairs on the posterior margin of tergum 3, in a position identical to that of the derbid plectrum.…”

Acoustic characteristics of sound produced by males of Bactrocera oleae change in the presence of conspecifics

“…In our work, we present a for the first time a high-quality digital audio recording of this male-produced sound of B. oleae and describe its temporal and spectral characteristics. The sound produced by wing vibration/stridulation is different than that of the flight wingbeat and consists of trains of pulses of variable duration and fundamental frequency (FF) that can vary from 300 to 390 Hz, as it was observed for B. cucurbitae 40 . In addition, higher harmonics are also present at multiples of the FF, as it was reported by Feron and Andrieu 9 and Rolli 10 .…”

Padrões de emissão acústica em moscas-das-frutas do gênero Anastrepha (Diptera: Tephritidae) e suas implicações no isolamento reprodutivo pré-copulatório

“…A definição e a nomenclatura dos parâmetros utilizados na bioacústica de insetos apresenta uma certa variação, mesmo entre os trabalhos com dípteros braquíceros -notadamente entre a nomenclatura dos "drosofilistas" (por exemplo, Hoikkala, 2006) e dos "tefritidistas" (por exemplo, Kanmiya, 1988e Mankin et al, 2000. Para o presente trabalho foi adotada a seguinte convenção mostrada na Figura 2.…”