Cargando…

The Elaborate Postural Display of Courting Drosophila persimilis Flies Produces Substrate-Borne Vibratory Signals

Sexual selection has led to the evolution of extraordinary and elaborate male courtship behaviors across taxa, including mammals and birds, as well as some species of flies. Drosophila persimilis flies perform complex courtship behaviors found in most Drosophila species, which consist of visual, air...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Hernández, Mónica Vega, Fabre, Caroline Cecile Gabrielle
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer US 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5055905/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27795616
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10905-016-9579-8
_version_ 1782458814533992448
author Hernández, Mónica Vega
Fabre, Caroline Cecile Gabrielle
author_facet Hernández, Mónica Vega
Fabre, Caroline Cecile Gabrielle
author_sort Hernández, Mónica Vega
collection PubMed
description Sexual selection has led to the evolution of extraordinary and elaborate male courtship behaviors across taxa, including mammals and birds, as well as some species of flies. Drosophila persimilis flies perform complex courtship behaviors found in most Drosophila species, which consist of visual, air-borne, gustatory and olfactory cues. In addition, Drosophila persimilis courting males also perform an elaborate postural display that is not found in most other Drosophila species. This postural display includes an upwards contortion of their abdomen, specialized movements of the head and forelegs, raising both wings into a “wing-posture” and, most remarkably, the males proffer the female a regurgitated droplet. Here, we use high-resolution imaging, laser vibrometry and air-borne acoustic recordings to analyse this postural display to ask which signals may promote copulation. Surprisingly, we find that no air-borne signals are generated during the display. We show, however, that the abdomen tremulates to generate substrate-borne vibratory signals, which correlate with the female’s immobility before she feeds onto the droplet and accepts copulation. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10905-016-9579-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-5055905
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2016
publisher Springer US
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-50559052016-10-26 The Elaborate Postural Display of Courting Drosophila persimilis Flies Produces Substrate-Borne Vibratory Signals Hernández, Mónica Vega Fabre, Caroline Cecile Gabrielle J Insect Behav Article Sexual selection has led to the evolution of extraordinary and elaborate male courtship behaviors across taxa, including mammals and birds, as well as some species of flies. Drosophila persimilis flies perform complex courtship behaviors found in most Drosophila species, which consist of visual, air-borne, gustatory and olfactory cues. In addition, Drosophila persimilis courting males also perform an elaborate postural display that is not found in most other Drosophila species. This postural display includes an upwards contortion of their abdomen, specialized movements of the head and forelegs, raising both wings into a “wing-posture” and, most remarkably, the males proffer the female a regurgitated droplet. Here, we use high-resolution imaging, laser vibrometry and air-borne acoustic recordings to analyse this postural display to ask which signals may promote copulation. Surprisingly, we find that no air-borne signals are generated during the display. We show, however, that the abdomen tremulates to generate substrate-borne vibratory signals, which correlate with the female’s immobility before she feeds onto the droplet and accepts copulation. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10905-016-9579-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Springer US 2016-09-02 2016 /pmc/articles/PMC5055905/ /pubmed/27795616 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10905-016-9579-8 Text en © The Author(s) 2016 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
spellingShingle Article
Hernández, Mónica Vega
Fabre, Caroline Cecile Gabrielle
The Elaborate Postural Display of Courting Drosophila persimilis Flies Produces Substrate-Borne Vibratory Signals
title The Elaborate Postural Display of Courting Drosophila persimilis Flies Produces Substrate-Borne Vibratory Signals
title_full The Elaborate Postural Display of Courting Drosophila persimilis Flies Produces Substrate-Borne Vibratory Signals
title_fullStr The Elaborate Postural Display of Courting Drosophila persimilis Flies Produces Substrate-Borne Vibratory Signals
title_full_unstemmed The Elaborate Postural Display of Courting Drosophila persimilis Flies Produces Substrate-Borne Vibratory Signals
title_short The Elaborate Postural Display of Courting Drosophila persimilis Flies Produces Substrate-Borne Vibratory Signals
title_sort elaborate postural display of courting drosophila persimilis flies produces substrate-borne vibratory signals
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5055905/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27795616
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10905-016-9579-8
work_keys_str_mv AT hernandezmonicavega theelaborateposturaldisplayofcourtingdrosophilapersimilisfliesproducessubstratebornevibratorysignals
AT fabrecarolinececilegabrielle theelaborateposturaldisplayofcourtingdrosophilapersimilisfliesproducessubstratebornevibratorysignals
AT hernandezmonicavega elaborateposturaldisplayofcourtingdrosophilapersimilisfliesproducessubstratebornevibratorysignals
AT fabrecarolinececilegabrielle elaborateposturaldisplayofcourtingdrosophilapersimilisfliesproducessubstratebornevibratorysignals