Responses of nonflying moths to ultrasound: the threat of gleaning bats

Werner, Tracey K.

doi:10.1139/z81-076

Cited by 38 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Taken together, the behavioral experiments indicate that the males produce ''hushed'' ultrasonic songs to suppress the female's escape behavior during courtship. The female's response to the ultrasonic songs might be cognate to the freezing behavior, which is induced in response to the echolocation calls of bats as a defense maneuver (1,7,17,18). This raises the intriguing possibility that the moths have exploited both the sensory apparatus and the behavioral reaction they ''inherited'' from their interaction with bats.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moths produce extremely quiet ultrasonic courtship songs by rubbing specialized scales

Nakano

Skals²,

Takanashi³

et al. 2008

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Insects have evolved a marked diversity of mechanisms to produce loud conspicuous sounds for efficient communication. However, the risk of eavesdropping by competitors and predators is high. Here, we describe a mechanism for producing extremely lowintensity ultrasonic songs (46 dB sound pressure level at 1 cm) adapted for private sexual communication in the Asian corn borer moth, Ostrinia furnacalis. During courtship, the male rubs specialized scales on the wing against those on the thorax to produce the songs, with the wing membrane underlying the scales possibly acting as a sound resonator. The male's song suppresses the escape behavior of the female, thereby increasing his mating success. Our discovery of extremely low-intensity ultrasonic communication may point to a whole undiscovered world of private communication, using ''quiet'' ultrasound.acoustic communication ͉ hearing ͉ playback experiment ͉ receiver bias ͉ sound-producing organ

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moths produce extremely quiet ultrasonic courtship songs by rubbing specialized scales

Nakano

Skals²,

Takanashi³

et al. 2008

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Presumably, this behaviour would protect the moth from predation by gleaning bats (Werner, 1981 and Baker, 2003), and may correlate to the last chance manoeuvres of moths hunted on the wing by aerial hawking bats. The advantage of the walking bioassay is that it allows for a precise estimate of response thresholds to acoustic stimuli both with and without odour stimulation, which would be very difficult to obtain for a flying moth.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Approximately halfway between the odour source and the release site the moth was stimulated with batlike ultrasound from a loudspeaker. A walking moth responds to ultrasound by 'freezing' and remaining stationary for some time (see also Werner, 1981;Rydell et al, 2000;Greenfield and Weber, 2000). Moths were presented with sound stimuli of different intensities and the behavioural thresholds to sound stimuli were determined at different pheromone qualities and quantities.…”

Section: The Walking Bioassaymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Her odours make him deaf: crossmodal modulation of olfaction and hearing in a male moth

Skals

Anderson

Kanneworff

et al. 2005

Journal of Experimental Biology

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SUMMARY All animals have to cope with sensory conflicts arising from simultaneous input of incongruent data to different sensory modalities. Nocturnal activity in moths includes mate-finding behaviour by odour detection and bat predator avoidance by acoustic detection. We studied male moths that were simultaneously exposed to female sex pheromones indicating the presence of a potential mate, and artificial bat cries simulating a predation risk. We show that stimulation of one sensory modality can modulate the response to information from another, suggesting that behavioural thresholds are dynamic and depend on the behavioural context. The tendency to respond to bat sounds decreased as the quality and/or the amount of sex pheromone increased. The behavioural threshold for artificial bat cries increased by up to 40 dB when male moths where simultaneously exposed to female sex pheromones. As a consequence, a male moth that has detected the pheromone plume from a female will not try to evade an approaching bat until the bat gets close, hence incurring increased predation risk. Our results suggest that male moths'reaction to sensory conflicts is a trade-off depending on the relative intensity of the input to CNS from the two sensory modalities.

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“…Moths use a "simple" thoracic ear, consisting of two sensory neurons attached to a tympanic membrane, to detect predator sounds (30). Flying moths may respond to bat sound by eliciting different evasive maneuvers, whereas walking moths on the vegetation will "freeze" (31,32). However, Author contributions: S.A., K.E., P.A., and N.S.…”

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confidence: 99%

Brief predator sound exposure elicits behavioral and neuronal long-term sensitization in the olfactory system of an insect

Anton¹,

Evengaard

Barrozo

et al. 2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Modulation of sensitivity to sensory cues by experience is essential for animals to adapt to a changing environment. Sensitization and adaptation to signals of the same modality as a function of experience have been shown in many cases, and some of the neurobiological mechanisms underlying these processes have been described. However, the influence of sensory signals on the sensitivity of a different modality is largely unknown. In males of the noctuid moth, Spodoptera littoralis, the sensitivity to the femaleproduced sex pheromone increases 24 h after a brief preexposure with pheromone at the behavioral and central nervous level. Here we show that this effect is not confined to the same sensory modality: the sensitivity of olfactory neurons can also be modulated by exposure to a different sensory stimulus, i.e., a pulsed stimulus mimicking echolocating sounds from attacking insectivorous bats. We tested responses of preexposed male moths in a walking bioassay and recorded from neurons in the primary olfactory center, the antennal lobe. We show that brief exposure to a bat call, but not to a behaviorally irrelevant tone, increases the behavioral sensitivity of male moths to sex pheromone 24 h later in the same way as exposure to the sex pheromone itself. The observed behavioral modification is accompanied by an increase in the sensitivity of olfactory neurons in the antennal lobe. Our data provide thus evidence for cross-modal experience-dependent plasticity not only on the behavioral level, but also on the central nervous level, in an insect.bat sound | plant odor | sexual behavior | intracellular recording A nimals live in an ever-changing environment and must be able to adapt their behavior in response to highly varying sensory cues. One way to achieve such adaptive behavior is through plasticity of the nervous system, whereby modifications can be induced depending on sensory input. Previous studies have shown that exposure to environmental signals during development and in early adult life might influence the precise design and sensitivity of the targeted sensory system (1-3). The development of the peripheral and central visual, auditory, somatosensory, and olfactory systems in vertebrates has been shown to be highly influenced by experience (e.g., refs. 4-11) and regulated by neurogenesis and network remodeling with, for example, axon growth, the increase of the number of synaptic connections, and the strengthening of existing synapses (ref. 1 and references therein; ref. 12).Different strategies to achieve high sensitivity for abundant and/ or important signals have evolved. One way is limited attention, whereby an animal focuses on a specific sensory system, or even on a specific type of sensory signal, whereas other, simultaneously occurring information signals might be less attended (13,14). Experience of sensory input with a behaviorally important stimulus could also elicit long-term changes, which improve the insect's ability to respond to that specific stimulus (e.g., ref. 15). Furthermore, brief s...

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Responses of nonflying moths to ultrasound: the threat of gleaning bats

Cited by 38 publications

References 16 publications

Moths produce extremely quiet ultrasonic courtship songs by rubbing specialized scales

Moths produce extremely quiet ultrasonic courtship songs by rubbing specialized scales

Her odours make him deaf: crossmodal modulation of olfaction and hearing in a male moth

Brief predator sound exposure elicits behavioral and neuronal long-term sensitization in the olfactory system of an insect

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