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Scent of a Dragonfly: Sex Recognition in a Polymorphic Coenagrionid

In polymorphic damselflies discrimination of females from males is complex owing to the presence of androchrome and gynochrome females. To date there is no evidence that damselflies use sensory modalities other than vision (and tactile stimuli) in mate searching and sex recognition. The results of t...

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Autores principales: Frati, Francesca, Piersanti, Silvana, Conti, Eric, Rebora, Manuela, Salerno, Gianandrea
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4549108/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26305118
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0136697
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author Frati, Francesca
Piersanti, Silvana
Conti, Eric
Rebora, Manuela
Salerno, Gianandrea
author_facet Frati, Francesca
Piersanti, Silvana
Conti, Eric
Rebora, Manuela
Salerno, Gianandrea
author_sort Frati, Francesca
collection PubMed
description In polymorphic damselflies discrimination of females from males is complex owing to the presence of androchrome and gynochrome females. To date there is no evidence that damselflies use sensory modalities other than vision (and tactile stimuli) in mate searching and sex recognition. The results of the present behavioural and electrophysiological investigations on Ischnura elegans, a polymorphic damselfly, support our hypothesis that chemical cues could be involved in Odonata sex recognition. The bioassays demonstrate that males in laboratory prefer female to male odour, while no significant difference was present in male behavior between stimuli from males and control. The bioassays suggest also some ability of males to distinguish between the two female morphs using chemical stimuli. The ability of male antennae to perceive odours from females has been confirmed by electrophysiological recordings. These findings are important not only to get insight into the chemical ecology of Odonata, and to shed light into the problem of olfaction in Paleoptera, but could be useful to clarify the controversial aspects of the mating behavior of polymorphic coenagrionids. Behavioural studies in the field are necessary to investigate further these aspects.
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spelling pubmed-45491082015-09-01 Scent of a Dragonfly: Sex Recognition in a Polymorphic Coenagrionid Frati, Francesca Piersanti, Silvana Conti, Eric Rebora, Manuela Salerno, Gianandrea PLoS One Research Article In polymorphic damselflies discrimination of females from males is complex owing to the presence of androchrome and gynochrome females. To date there is no evidence that damselflies use sensory modalities other than vision (and tactile stimuli) in mate searching and sex recognition. The results of the present behavioural and electrophysiological investigations on Ischnura elegans, a polymorphic damselfly, support our hypothesis that chemical cues could be involved in Odonata sex recognition. The bioassays demonstrate that males in laboratory prefer female to male odour, while no significant difference was present in male behavior between stimuli from males and control. The bioassays suggest also some ability of males to distinguish between the two female morphs using chemical stimuli. The ability of male antennae to perceive odours from females has been confirmed by electrophysiological recordings. These findings are important not only to get insight into the chemical ecology of Odonata, and to shed light into the problem of olfaction in Paleoptera, but could be useful to clarify the controversial aspects of the mating behavior of polymorphic coenagrionids. Behavioural studies in the field are necessary to investigate further these aspects. Public Library of Science 2015-08-25 /pmc/articles/PMC4549108/ /pubmed/26305118 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0136697 Text en © 2015 Frati et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Frati, Francesca
Piersanti, Silvana
Conti, Eric
Rebora, Manuela
Salerno, Gianandrea
Scent of a Dragonfly: Sex Recognition in a Polymorphic Coenagrionid
title Scent of a Dragonfly: Sex Recognition in a Polymorphic Coenagrionid
title_full Scent of a Dragonfly: Sex Recognition in a Polymorphic Coenagrionid
title_fullStr Scent of a Dragonfly: Sex Recognition in a Polymorphic Coenagrionid
title_full_unstemmed Scent of a Dragonfly: Sex Recognition in a Polymorphic Coenagrionid
title_short Scent of a Dragonfly: Sex Recognition in a Polymorphic Coenagrionid
title_sort scent of a dragonfly: sex recognition in a polymorphic coenagrionid
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4549108/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26305118
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0136697
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