Defense of bombardier beetles against avian predators
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Defense of bombardier beetles against avian predators Wataru Kojima 1
&
Ryo Yamamoto 1
Received: 4 June 2020 / Revised: 16 July 2020 / Accepted: 1 August 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Bombardier beetles (Coleoptera, Carabidae, Brachininae) possess a remarkable defense mechanism where a hot chemical spray is released from the tip of their abdomen, with an audible explosive sound. To date, the repellent properties of these chemicals have been tested against a limited number of taxa, such as amphibians and insects. To investigate the impact of bombardier beetle defenses on avian predators, feeding trials were conducted using the bombardier beetle (Pheropsophus jessoensis) and the Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica), a sympatric and generalist predator. All naïve, hand-reared quail attacked live beetles, indicating the absence of an innate aversion to them. However, most of the quail rejected consuming the beetles whether or not the beetles sprayed them with chemicals. Naïve quail also rejected dead P. jessoensis individuals. These results support the recent hypothesis that it is not essential for P. jessoensis to spray noxious chemicals to deter predators. We also found that some of the quail exposed to live P. jessoensis remembered to avoid them for up to 5 weeks. Our results provide the first evidence of the repelling effects of bombardier beetle defense mechanisms on avian predators. Keywords Antipredator . Aposematic coloration . Benzoquinone . Carabid . Chemical defense . Warning signal
Introduction Chemical defense is one of the most widespread antipredator strategies in insects (Ruxton et al. 2004; Sugiura 2020). The explosive defense system of bombardier beetles (Coleoptera, Carabidae, Brachininae) is a textbook example of insect chemical defense (Aneshansley et al. 1969; Schildknecht et al. 1970; Dettner 1987; Eisner and Aneshansley 1999; Eisner et al. 2005; Arndt et al. 2015). These beetles spray a hot noxious secretion (approximately 100 °C), mainly consisting of 1,4-benzoquinone, from the tip of the abdomen when attacked (Aneshansley et al. 1969; Blum 1981). This chemical defense mechanism is unique in that the noxious spray is formed by injecting hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinone into a reaction chamber in which enzymes are secreted (Aneshansley et al. Communicated by: John A. Byers Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-020-01692-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Wataru Kojima [email protected] 1
Graduate School of Sciences and Technology for Innovation, Yamaguchi University, 1677-1 Yoshida, Yamaguchi, Japan
1969; Dean et al. 1990). A strong repellent effect of the released chemicals has been shown against predatory insects (Eisner 1958), spiders (Eisner and Dean 1976; Eisner et al. 2006), and frogs (Dean 1980; Sugiura 2018; Sugiura and Sato 2018). Furthermore, a recent study found that frogs stopped their attack after their
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