Abstract

This review addresses the history of neuroethological studies on acoustic communication in insects. One objective is to reveal how basic ethological concepts developed in the 1930s, such as innate releasing mechanisms and fixed action patterns, have influenced the experimental and theoretical approaches to studying acoustic communication systems in Orthopteran insects. The idea of innateness of behaviors has directly fostered the search for central pattern generators that govern the stridulation patterns of crickets, katydids or grasshoppers. A central question pervading 50 years of research is how the essential match between signal features and receiver characteristics has evolved and is maintained during evolution. As in other disciplines, the tight interplay between technological developments and experimental and theoretical advances becomes evident throughout this review. While early neuroethological studies focused primarily on proximate questions such as the implementation of feature detectors or central pattern generators, later the interest shifted more towards ultimate questions. Orthoptera offer the advantage that both proximate and ultimate questions can be tackled in the same system. An important advance was the transition from laboratory studies under well-defined acoustic conditions to field studies that allowed to measure costs and benefits of acoustic signaling as well as constraints on song evolution.

Highlights

  • This essay is devoted to the history of investigations on acoustic communication systems of insects, with a main focus on grasshoppers, crickets and katydids, and some borrowing from frogs

  • Pivotal for a successful communication is the match between signal features and receiver characteristics, and a central question is how this match can be maintained during evolution and species separation (Alexander 1967; Bradbury and Vehrencamp 1998; Gerhardt and Huber 2002)

  • Where within the central nervous system (CNS) is the stridulation central pattern generator (CPG) located? As a first step to narrow down the respective structures, Huber applied surgical experiments and postulated a hierarchy in which the brain and the mesothoracic ganglion act together to control the cricket’s stridulatory movements (Huber 1960)

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Summary

Introduction

This essay is devoted to the history of investigations on acoustic communication systems of insects, with a main focus on grasshoppers, crickets and katydids, and some borrowing from frogs. Pivotal for a successful communication is the match between signal features and receiver characteristics, and a central question is how this match can be maintained during evolution and species separation (Alexander 1967; Bradbury and Vehrencamp 1998; Gerhardt and Huber 2002). The neuronal basis for the production of acoustic signals will be covered, in particular the search for central pattern generators that govern the stridulatory movements. These advantages made Orthopteran insects excellent subjects for elucidating the neuronal basis of the ethological concepts of ‘fixed action patterns’ and ‘innate releasing mechanisms’

Early observations on acoustic communication in crickets and grasshoppers
Processing in the frequency domain?
Strength of comparative approaches
New modeling approaches
Matching of sender and receiver properties
The temperature problem
Benefits and costs of acoustic communication
Energetic costs
Findings
Costs through predators and parasitoids
Full Text
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