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Abstract
Poikilothermic animals are affected by variations in environmental temperature, as the basic properties of nerve cells and muscles are altered. Nevertheless, insect sensory systems, such as the auditory system, need to function effectively over a wide range of temperatures, as sudden changes of up to 10 °C or more are common. We investigated the performance of auditory receptor neurons and properties of the tympanal membrane of Locusta migratoria in response to temperature changes. Intracellular recordings of receptors at two temperatures (21 and 28 °C) revealed a moderate increase in spike rate with a mean Q10 of 1.4. With rising temperature, the spike rate–intensity–functions exhibited small decreases in thresholds and expansions of the dynamic range, while spike durations decreased. Tympanal membrane displacement, investigated using microscanning laser vibrometry, exhibited a small temperature effect, with a Q10 of 1.2. These findings suggest that locusts are affected by shifts in temperature at the periphery of the auditory pathway, but the effects on spike rate, sensitivity, and tympanal membrane displacement are small. Robust encoding of acoustic signals by only slightly temperature-dependent receptor neurons and almost temperature-independent tympanal membrane properties might enable locusts and grasshoppers to reliably identify sounds in spite of changes of their body temperature.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00359-014-0926-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Q10 values were calculated in a similar fashion as the electrophysiology (Eq 1), where X was the amplitude gain at the higher temperature (Tx) and Y was the gain at the lower temperature (Ty), thereby the electrophysiology and laser physiology results were comparable
Intracellular recordings at 28 and 21 °C revealed that spike rate increased with increasing temperature (Fig. 2)
Warmer temperatures lead to slightly larger tympanal membrane displacements (Figs. 4, 5) as well as to increased firing rates of auditory receptor neurons (Figs. 2, 5)
Summary
The ability to detect and process sounds is an important feature in many insects, enabling them to identify predators, prey, or mating partners Both the production and perception of acoustic signals depend on body temperature, as the properties of muscles and neurons involved change with temperature shifts (Heller 1986; Bauer and von Helversen 1987). In the present study we investigate the effects temperature exerts on the tympanal membrane properties and performance of auditory receptor neurons of Locusta migratoria L. Sound induces a unidirectional travelling wave in the tympanal membrane, by which energy of different frequencies is channelled to distinct attachment sites of correspondingly tuned receptor neurons, peaking at point 1 (Fig. 1b, Online Resource 1).
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