Abstract
This review represents complex mechanisms and processes of multimodal communication in stink bugs. During reproductive behavior the airborne and substrate-borne signals enable mate recognition, mediate directionality of movement, eliminate rivals and motivate partners for copulation. Species specific characteristics prevent hybridization at various levels of mating behavior. Male sex and/or aggregation pheromones as uni- or multicomponent signals attract mates to land on the same plant and there, trigger females to call males by vibratory signals, transmitted through the plant. Communication during courtship runs at short distance with visual, airborne, substrate-borne and contact chemical and mechanical signals. Abdomen vibrations produce the main repertoire of female and male calling, courtship and rival vibratory signals. To increase their informational value, stink bugs tune signal frequency, amplitude and temporal characteristics with mechanical properties of plants. The airborne component of species non-specific and high amplitude signals, produced by body tremulation and wing buzzing enables communication contact between mates standing on mechanically isolated plants. Female vibratory signals increase the amount of male emitted pheromone and the latter keeps female calling. Interaction, synergy and characteristics of visual, contact chemical and vibratory signals, exchanged during courtship remain under-investigated. Female and male competition for access to copulation in imbalanced sex conditions is characterized by duetting with rival song vibratory signals. Different receptors in and on different parts of the body are able to detect with high sensitivity multimodal airborne and substrate-borne communication signals. The relevance of the multimodal communication for the reproductive success of stink bugs is discussed.
Highlights
Millions of insect species inhabit air, water and land
To preserve above-threshold signal-to-noise ratio at the necessary distance, solitary insects developed, through evolution, efficient mechanisms to communicate by unimodal, multimodal and multicomponent signals [1] transmitted through different media
Overlapping of N. viridula female calling song signals by long male courtship song responses has been recorded before their synchronization, and in E. heros the consequence was recently [84] described of interference in the temporal, frequency and amplitude modulation pattern of masked signals together with mates’ strategies to preserve information within the complex vibration
Summary
Millions of insect species inhabit air, water and land. Population success depends crucially on efficient communication, which enables solitary species to meet in the field and holds insect societies together. The female courtship song, described in 15 stink bug species [19] is triggered by male courting and lasts a shorter time; its pattern of combined pulses and/or pulse trains shows less regularity compared with calling songs. Less regular rival duetting with the female calling song signals evolves in E. heros females to alternation with the frequency modulated pulse trains of various temporal characteristics Contrary to both Chinavia species, E. heros males during rivalry continue to emit their vibrational responses overlapping female signals. Overlapping of N. viridula female calling song signals by long male courtship song responses has been recorded before their synchronization, and in E. heros the consequence was recently [84] described of interference in the temporal, frequency and amplitude modulation pattern of masked signals together with mates’ strategies to preserve information within the complex vibration. Prešern et al [131] recorded in N. viridula neuronal discrimination of directional cues at around 0.5 ms of time differences between them, by certain N. viridula ventral cord vibratory interneurons, described previously by Zorović et al [108]
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