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opencc-by-4.0Apr 2024View details →

Courtship behavior and a mating event of the Whitespotted eagle rays, Aetobatus narinari, in surrounding waters of the Anchieta Island State Park, Southeast Brazil.

The Diving into Conservation project is a inititive that seeks to sensitize visitors of the Anchieta Island State Park (AISP), a protection area - IUCN Category II, about conservations matters, specially regaring the whitespotted eagle ray, Aetobatus narinari. The AISP's boundaries is safeguarded by a marine no-take zone. Since 2022, the project has been monitoring the AISP's surrounding waters, with volunteers conducting sampling campaigns using drones, Baited Remote Underwater Videos and Diver Operated Videos. Here, we present the records made on March 2023 and January 2024, showing the courtship behaviour and mating event of the species. Such findings reveal the importance of the protected areas as a safety place for mating events.

opencc-zeroApr 2024View details →

Sexual selection and species recognition promote complex male courtship displays in ungulates

Identifying the evolutionary drivers of sexual signal complexity is a key challenge in the study of animal communication. Among mammals, male bovids and cervids often perform elaborate gestural displays during courtship, consisting of ritualized movements of various parts of the body but the causes underlying interspecific variation in complexity of such displays remain poorly understood. Here we apply the comparative method to investigate which factors may have either promoted or constrained gestural repertoire size. We found that sexual selection was a strong predictor of gestural display complexity in male bovids and cervids. Repertoire size was positively correlated with breeding group size, an indicator of the intensity of sexual selection on males. Moreover, repertoires were larger in species adopting non-territorial and lek breeding mating systems than in species adopting resource-defence territoriality, a finding that can be explained by more emphasis on direct benefits than indirect benefits in resource-defence systems, where male mating success may also be less skewed due to difficulty in monopolising mates. The results also indicate that gestural repertoire size was positively correlated with the number of closely-related species occurring in sympatry. This is consistent with display complexity being selected to facilitate species recognition during courtship and thereby avoid interspecific hybridization. At the same time, repertoire size was negatively associated with male body mass, possibly due to the energetic and mechanical constraints imposed on movements in very large species. By contrast, we found no evidence that the habitat drives selection for complex gestural courtship displays.

opencc-zeroJul 2021View details →

Why signal if you are not attractive? Courtship synchrony in a fiddler crab

Synchronised male courtship signals are puzzling because males generally compete with each other for females. Male Austruca mjoebergi fiddler crabs wave in synchrony to attract females, but, all else being equal, females have a strong preference for 'leader' males that can produce waves before other males ('followers'). So why do followers participate in synchrony? Here, we experimentally investigate three explanations for why followers might wave in synchrony: 1) followers obtain a small proportion of matings, 2) followers are more likely than a leader to attract females if they are positioned closer to her than is the leader, and 3) synchrony functions as a long-distance visual signal that attracts females so there is a net benefit to synchrony for all males. Using robotic male crabs, we found that females show a strong preference for leading males, but followers obtain a 'better-than-nothing' proportion of mates. We also showed that closer proximity of a follower to the female did not affect her preference for leaders, although being a leader increased a male's success when he was further from the female than were rival males. Finally, females were more likely to approach a distant group if there was a leader present, suggesting that followers do benefit from participating in synchrony.

opencc-by-nd-4.0Oct 2022View details →

Figure 4 in Courtship display by a male Stenaelurillus sp. from Tamil Nadu (Araneae: Salticidae: Aelurillina)

Figure 4. Two sequences (1-3, 4-6) showing sudden transition to a fully elevated position by a male Stenaelurillus sp. in front of a female, with legs I and II, both with bands of bright white setae, fully extended. In this remarkable display, the pedipalps are rotated down to expose the chelicerae, but still held together to fully expose the bright white setae on the upper side (prolateral side) of each pedipalp. The fringes on the anterior side of legs I and legs II are also fully extended in this position. The dark black colour of the underside of the opisthosoma (visible in 3) provides a strong contrast to the bright white setae of the pedipalps.

opencc-by-nd-4.0Oct 2022View details →

Figure 2 in Courtship display by a male Stenaelurillus sp. from Tamil Nadu (Araneae: Salticidae: Aelurillina)

Figure 2. Initial displays of male Stenaelurillus sp. in front of courted females, with pedipalps held together in front of the chelicerae and legs I elevated and extended to the sides.

opencc-by-nd-4.0Oct 2022View details →

Figure 3 in Courtship display by a male Stenaelurillus sp. from Tamil Nadu (Araneae: Salticidae: Aelurillina)

Figure 3. Sequence showing sudden transition from the intial display (1) to lateral expansion and elevation of the fringed opisthosoma (2) by a male Stenaelurillus sp. in front of a courted female.

opencc-zeroDec 2022View details →

Data from: Gustatory polymorphism mediates a new adaptive courtship strategy

Human-imposed selection can lead to adaptive changes in sensory traits. However, rapid evolution of the sensory system can interfere with other behaviors, and animals must overcome such sensory conflicts. In response to insecticide baits that contain glucose, German cockroaches evolved glucose-aversion (GA), which confers behavioral resistance against baits. During courtship, the male offers the female a nuptial gift that contains maltose, which expediates copulation. However, the female's saliva rapidly hydrolyzes maltose into glucose, which causes GA females to dismount the courting male, which reduces mating success of GA females. Comparative analysis revealed two adaptive traits in GA males. They produce maltotriose, which is more resilient to salivary glucosidases, and they initiate copulation faster than wild-type (WT) males, before GA females interrupt their nuptial feeding and dismount the male. Recombinant lines of the two strains showed that the two emergent traits of GA males were not genetically associated with the GA trait. Results suggest that the two courtship traits emerged in response to the altered sexual behavior of GA females and independently of the male's GA trait. Although rapid adaptive evolution generates sexual mismatches that lower fitness, compensatory behavioral evolution can correct these sensory discrepancies.

opencc-zeroDec 2022View details →

Evolutionary conservation and diversification of auditory neural circuits that process courtship songs in Drosophila

Acoustic communication signals diversify even on short evolutionary time scales. To understand how the auditory system underlying acoustic communication could evolve, we conducted a systematic comparison of the early stages of the auditory neural circuit involved in song information processing between closely-related fruit-fly species. Male Drosophila melanogaster and D. simulans produce different sound signals during mating rituals, known as courtship songs. Female flies from these species selectively increase their receptivity when they hear songs with conspecific temporal patterns. Here, we first confirmed interspecific differences in temporal pattern preferences; D. simulans preferred pulse songs with longer intervals than D. melanogaster. Primary and secondary song-relay neurons, JO neurons and AMMC-B1 neurons, shared similar morphology and neurotransmitters between species. The temporal pattern preferences of AMMC-B1 neurons were also relatively similar between species, with slight but significant differences in their band-pass properties. Although the shift direction of the response property matched that of the behavior, these differences are not large enough to explain behavioral differences in song preferences. This study enhances our understanding of the conservation and diversification of the architecture of the early-stage neural circuit which processes acoustic communication signals.

opencc-zeroJul 2023View details →

Data from: A mosaic of endogenous and plant-derived courtship signals in moths

Insects rely on olfaction to guide a wide range of adaptive behaviors, including mate- and food-localization, mate choice, oviposition site selection, kin recognition and predator avoidance. In nocturnal insects, such as moths and cockroaches, mate finding is stimulated predominantly by long-range species-specific sex pheromones, typically emitted by females. During courtship, at close-range, males in most moth species emit a blend of pheromone compounds from an everted, often large, pheromone gland. While long-distance communication with sex pheromones has been remarkably well characterized in thousands of moth species, close-range chemosensory sexual communication remains poorly understood. We reveal that in the moth Chloridea virescens, the male pheromone consists of three distinct classes of compounds: de novo biosynthesized alcohols, aldehydes, acetates and carboxylic acids that resemble the female's emissions, and newly identified compounds that are unique to the male pheromone: aliphatic polyunsaturated hydrocarbons and sequestered plant secondary compounds and hormone derivatives, including methyl salicylate (MeSA). Thus, males employ a mosaic pheromone blend of disparate origins that may serve multiple functions during courtship. We show that two olfactory receptors in female antennae are tuned to MeSA, which facilitates female acceptance of the male. Because MeSA is emitted by plants attacked by pathogens and herbivores, the chemosensory system of female moths was likely already tuned to this plant volatile, and males appear to exploit the female's preadapted sensory bias. Interestingly, while female moths (largely nocturnal) and butterflies (diurnal) diverged in their use of sensory modalities in sexual communication, MeSA is used by males of both lineages.

Figure 13 in Courtship display by a peacock spider, Maratus constellatus (Araneae: Salticidae: Euophryini: Australphryni)

Figure 13 (continued from previous page, continued on next page). Selected, sequential frames from a 25 fps video of a male Maratus constellatus courting a female. 16-17, Semaphore display. 18-24, Semaphore display with fan dance components. 25-26, Semaphore display. 27, Fan dance in position below female. 28-30, Semaphore display. Legs III were lowered as far as possible.

Figure 2. Three sequential photos showing a in Courtship display by a peacock spider, Maratus constellatus (Araneae: Salticidae: Euophryini: Australphryni)

Figure 2. Three sequential photos showing a display that combined semaphore signalling with extended legs III (with no lateral movement), with the elevated body and fan of the fan dance.

Figure 5 in Courtship display by a peacock spider, Maratus constellatus (Araneae: Salticidae: Euophryini: Australphryni)

Figure 5 (continued on next page). Sequential frames from a 25 fps video of a male Maratus constellatus fan dancing in front of a female (small steps accompanied by leading leg and low-amplitude fan wave at 6.7 Hz). Arrows indicate prograde (in the stepping direction) rotation of the fan relative to the previous frame. At other times fan rotation was slightly retrograde.

Figure 7. Sequential frames from a 25 in Courtship display by a peacock spider, Maratus constellatus (Araneae: Salticidae: Euophryini: Australphryni)

Figure 7. Sequential frames from a 25 fps video of a male Maratus constellatus fan dancing in front of a female (small steps accompanied by leading leg and low-amplitude fan wave at 8.3 Hz). Arrows indicate prograde rotation of the fan (in the stepping direction) relative to the previous frame. At other times fan rotation was slightly retrograde.

Figure 6 in Courtship display by a peacock spider, Maratus constellatus (Araneae: Salticidae: Euophryini: Australphryni)

Figure 6 (continued from previous page). Sequential frames from a 25 fps video of a male Maratus constellatus fan dancing in front of a female (small steps accompanied by leading leg and low-amplitude fan wave at 8.3 Hz).

Figure 1 in Courtship display by a peacock spider, Maratus constellatus (Araneae: Salticidae: Euophryini: Australphryni)

Figure 1. Some external features of the adult male Maratus constellatus. Many characters (e.g., the triangular anal tuft and the thoracic tract of scales) are shared with a number of other Maratus species. Stripes in the eye region and ornamentation of leg III resemble corresponding characters of M. flavus. However males can be easily identified by the distinctive pattern of scales on the dorsal opisthosomal plate.

Figure 4 in Courtship display by a peacock spider, Maratus constellatus (Araneae: Salticidae: Euophryini: Australphryni)

Figure 4. Fan dancing by male Maratus constellatus. During this display the fan is elevated with flaps extended as the spider steps from side to side in front of a female. While side-stepping, only the leading leg is alternately flexed (1, 5, 6), and then extended in a vertical position (2-4, 7).

Figure 6 in Courtship display by a peacock spider, Maratus constellatus (Araneae: Salticidae: Euophryini: Australphryni)

Figure 6 (continued on next page). Sequential frames from a 25 fps video of a male Maratus constellatus fan dancing in front of a female (small steps accompanied by leading leg and low-amplitude fan wave at 8.3 Hz). Arrows indicate prograde (in the stepping direction) rotation of the fan relative to the previous frame. At other times fan rotation was slightly retrograde.

Figure 13 in Courtship display by a peacock spider, Maratus constellatus (Araneae: Salticidae: Euophryini: Australphryni)

Figure 13 (continued from previous page). Selected, sequential frames from a 25 fps video of a male Maratus constellatus courting a female. 46, Semaphore display while approaching female from the front. 47-50. Continuing semaphore with legs III, legs I were elevated to position above the carapace of the female. 51, Return to semaphore display after female moved. 52- 60, Subsequent approach with legs I elevated. Note flexion at the tibiometatarsal joint.

Figure 5 in Courtship display by a peacock spider, Maratus constellatus (Araneae: Salticidae: Euophryini: Australphryni)

Figure 5 (continued from previous page). Sequential frames from a 25 fps video of a male Maratus constellatus fan dancing in front of a female (small steps accompanied by leading leg and low-amplitude fan wave at 6.7 Hz).

Figure 12 in Courtship display by a peacock spider, Maratus constellatus (Araneae: Salticidae: Euophryini: Australphryni)

Figure 12 (continued from previous page). Selected, sequential frames from a 25 fps video of a male Maratus constellatus courting a female. 33-38, Continuation of semaphore display. 39-41, After the female turned back toward the male, the male resumed his fan dance. 41-48, After the female turned further away from the male, the male once again began his semaphore display.