Cicada Acoustic Communication
Cicadas are iconic insects that use conspicuously loud and often complexly structured stereotyped sound signals for mate attraction. Focusing on acoustic communication, we review the current data to address two major questions: How do males generate speci
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Cicada Acoustic Communication Paulo J. Fonseca
Abstract Cicadas are iconic insects that use conspicuously loud and often complexly structured stereotyped sound signals for mate attraction. Focusing on acoustic communication, we review the current data to address two major questions: How do males generate specific and intense acoustic signals and how is phonotactic orientation achieved? We first explain the structure of the sound producing apparatus, how the sound is produced and modulated and how the song pattern is generated. We then describe the organisation and the sensitivity of the auditory system. We will highlight the capabilities of the hearing system in frequency and time domains, and deal with the directionality of hearing, which provides the basis for phonotactic orientation. Finally, we focus on behavioural studies and what they have taught us about signal recognition. This work is dedicated to Franz Huber and Axel Michelsen for teaching me so much….
7.1 Introduction About 2,500 species of cicadas live in temperate and tropical regions around the world. Among insects they are notorious for their conspicuous loud and complex sound signals, which are stereotyped and species-specific (e.g. Fonseca 1991; but see Sueur and Aubin 2003, Sueur et al. 2007). Their particular temporal and spectral structure depends on the biomechanics of the sound production apparatus, and on the neural networks underlying song pattern generation. The latter determine the timing and bilateral coordination of timbal muscle contractions, i.e. the song pattern (Fonseca et al. 2008). P. J. Fonseca (*) Department of Biologia Animal and Centro de Biologia Ambiental, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Bloco C2, Campo Grande, 1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal e-mail: [email protected]
B. Hedwig (ed.), Insect Hearing and Acoustic Communication, Animal Signals and Communication 1, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-40462-7_7, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014
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P. J. Fonseca
Signals are produced by males for mate attraction, courtship induction, as a distress sound or in the context of male–male interactions (Fonseca 1991). Since mate finding in cicadas is usually mediated by acoustic signals, females must be able to recognise the male signal and to orientate towards the singing male(s). Additionally, a female entering a chorus may need to discriminate among different males in an acoustically noisy environment. The complexity of the courtship behaviour allows females to select a mate, possibly upon multimodal assessment of mechanosensory information, conveyed through airborne sound or substrate vibrations, and other sensory channels such as vision (e.g. Cooley and Marshall 2001). The issue of sexual selection is still poorly addressed in these insects. Female phonotaxis depends on the sensitivity and directionality of the hearing organs and on the extraction of behaviourally relevant information within the nervous system. Information can be imbedded in amplitude modulations of the male signal and/or in its frequency spectr
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