Abstract
Simple SummaryIn this work, we investigated the effects of conspecific female rival signals in vibratory communication and mating behavior of three species of stink bugs. In the presence of rival female signals, as noisy background vibrations, couples (a male and a female) of the three species showed negative effects in their sexual vibratory communication that resulted in reduced mating and copulation in relation to pairs not exposed to rival signals. The results suggest that female rival signals could be used to disrupt mating and may be a tool for stink bug management by reducing their population increase. Stink bugs are major pests in diverse crops around the world. Pest management strategies based on insect behavioral manipulation could help to develop biorational management strategies of stink bugs. Insect mating disruption using vibratory signals is an approach with high potential for pest management. The objective of this work was to investigate the effect of conspecific female rival signals on the mating behavior and copulation of three stink bug species to establish their potential for mating disruption. Previously recorded female rival signals were played back to bean plants where pairs of the Neotropical brown stink bug, Euschistus heros, and two green stink bugs, Chinavia ubica and Chinavia impicticornis were placed. Vibratory communication and mating behavior were recorded for each pair throughout the experimental time (20 min). Female rival signals show a disrupting effect on the reproductive behavior of three conspecific investigated stink bug species. This effect was more clearly expressed in E. heros and C. ubica than in C. impicticornis. The likelihood of copulating in pairs placed on control plants, without rival signals, increased 29.41 times in E. heros, 4.6 times in C. ubica and 1.71 times in C. impicticornis. However, in the last case, the effect of female rivalry signals in copulation was not significant. The effect of mating disruption of female rival signals of the three stink bug species may originate from the observed reduction in specific vibratory communication signals emitted, which influences the duet formation and further development of different phases of mating behavior. Our results suggest that female rival signals have potential for application in manipulation and disruption of mating behavior of stink bugs. Further work needs to focus on the effects of female rival signals used in long duration experiments and also their interactions with chemical communication of stink bugs.
Highlights
Communication using substrate-borne vibrations is common in many insect species, those that live on plants [1]
The colonies of E. heros, C. ubica and C. impicticornis were started with insects collected in soybean fields near Brasília, DF, Brazil
In proportion of of pairs emitting vibratory signals waswas obInthe thethree threespecies, species,a areduced reduced proportion pairs emitting vibratory signals served when submitted to playback of rival female signals, with significant effect only observed when submitted to playback of rival female signals, with significant effect only in in
Summary
Communication using substrate-borne vibrations is common in many insect species, those that live on plants [1]. Plant-dwelling stink bugs communicate during reproductive behavior predominantly by chemical [3] and substrate-borne vibratory signals [2]. In these insects, the male pheromone attracts females [4] to land on the same plant, and there it triggers the female to produce vibratory signals that attract males to search for and approach the calling female. Stink bug vibratory signals are classified by their specific function in the mating behavioral context, as calling, courtship, copulatory, repelling and rival songs [5]. Their species and gender specificity are expressed by temporal (duration, repetition time) and spectral (dominant frequency, amplitude (AM)
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