Female answer specificity to male drumming calls in three closely related species of the stonefly genus Zwicknia (Plecoptera: Capniidae)

Abstract

This study examines the rate of female answers to conspecific versus heterospecific male vibratory calls in three, closely related stonefly species: Zwicknia bifrons, Z. acuta, and Z. rupprechti. In a previous study those three species were recognized on the basis of their distinct male drumming calls along with differences in genital morphology and genetic divergence. During this study no-choice playback experiments using original male call samples from each species were performed, and the answer rate of females to conspecific and heterospecific signal variants was measured. Mixed effect logistic regression models were used to test if male call species identity had a statistically significant effect on female answer probability. Females answered conspecific male calls with significantly higher probability than heterospecific calls in all the three examined species, suggesting that the divergence of vibrational communication can be an important component of the prezygotic isolation between them. Low, but well detectable responsiveness to heterospecific calls was observable between Z. bifrons and Z. acuta, the two species closest to each other regarding mitochondrial genetic divergence and male call pattern similarity. Thus, our results are most congruent with a tight, gradual coevolution of male calls and female preferences.

The First Study of Mating Mistakes in Stoneflies (Plecoptera) from China, with Remarks on Their Biological Implications

“…Although in stoneflies the use of species-specific vibrational signals is recognized as a very important mechanism for mate encounter and recognition [1,4,6,30], sometimes, when adults coincide on a relatively small surface, the vibrational signals can be omitted or they are unsuccessful in avoiding interspecies mating, not preventing a male from trying to copulate with an individual that did not answer to his drumming call.…”

A description of the male drumming call of Besdolus ventralis (Pictet, 1841) (Plecoptera: Perlodidae)

“…Rupprecht 1969, Bottorff et al 1990, Tierno de Figueroa et al 2002, Graf et al 2014. Experimental studies examining female preference also suggest that inter-sexual vibrational signalling is likely to be an important element of the species-specific mate recognition system of these insects (Rupprecht 1982, Zeigler & Stewart 1986, Stewart & Maketon 1990, Boumans & Johnsen 2014, Orci & Murányi 2021. Therefore, studying the oscillographic pattern of those signals may help us resolve species-level taxonomic problems and reveal a hidden diversity of the biology of these insects (Tierno de Figueroa et al 2011.…”