Abstract
Insects use airborne vibrations caused by their own movements to control their behaviors and produce airborne vibrations to communicate with conspecific mates. In this review, I use two examples to introduce how insects use airborne vibrations to accurately control behavior or for communication. The first example is vibration-sensitive sensilla along the wing margin that stabilize wingbeat frequency. There are two specialized sensors along the wing margin for detecting the airborne vibration caused by wingbeats. The response properties of these sensors suggest that each sensor plays a different role in the control of wingbeats. The second example is Johnston's organ that contributes to regulating flying speed and perceiving vector information about food sources to hive-mates. There are parallel vibration processing pathways in the central nervous system related with these behaviors, flight and communication. Both examples indicate that the frequency of airborne vibration are filtered on the sensory level and that on the central nervous system level, the extracted vibration signals are integrated with other sensory signals for executing quick adaptive motor response.
Highlights
Insects control their behavior by using various kinds of sensory organs to detect environmental information
There was no physiological evidence of their function, we found in experiments that the neurons innervating the bristles along the wing margin of male P. rapae and Bombyx mori were excited only by vibratory wind stimuli, but not by stationary bending of the bristles [6]
The bristles along the wing margin are mechanical sensors monitoring airborne vibrations caused by the wingbeat, which suggests that the bristles along the wing margin have different roles from that of known proprioceptors such as the stretch receptor
Summary
Insects control their behavior by using various kinds of sensory organs to detect environmental information. It has been suggested that the spaced bristles along the wing margin of lepidopterous species (butterfly and moth) are sensory sensilla related to the control of wingbeats. Until now their mechanical responsiveness remain unknown. Molecular biological methods have revealed that the majority of JO development, structures, and molecules related to transforming the distortion of the cuticle into electrical signals, are common with those in mammalian cochlear hair cells For this reason, insects including Drosophila have become animal models in auditory processing research [10]. This paper will review how insects detect airborne vibrations and produce adaptive behaviors by looking at two examples: the vibration-sensitive bristles along the wing margin of moth, and Johnston’s organ in honeybee antennae. The characteristics of airborne vibration processing in insects will be discussed
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