Transcript Slide 1

Insect
communication
Presented by: Reem Alajmi
Contents
- Introduction
- Types of insect communication
- Visual communication.
- Chemical communication.
- Tactile communication.
- Acoustic communication.
- References:
- The principles of Insect Physiology.
- The insects structure and function.
- Internet.
Introduction
•Communication: It is the exchange of information between
individuals
•
Most insect language is innate. And most of their language
is
inherited, so each individual born with a distinctive
vocabulary that shared only with other members of its own species.
Insects may send a communication signals by:
1- Doing something (e.g. make a noise,
release a chemical or flash a light).
2- By physical makeup (e.g. wing pattern, body colour)
Why insects
communicate?
1- Recognition of kin or nest mates.
2- Locating or identifying a member of the opposite sex.
3- Facilitation of courtship and mating.
4- Giving directions for location of food.
5- Regulating spatial distribution of individuals, aggregation
or dispersal; establishing and maintaining a territory.
6- Warning of danger; setting off an alarm.
7- Expressing threat or submission.
8- mimicry.
- Like other animals, insects use their five senses to acquire
information about their environment (taste, touch, vision,
hearing, olfaction (smell)). So insect communicate by:
Types of insect
communication
Visual
communication
Chemical
communication
Tactile
communication
Acoustic
communication
The colour patterns and other markings of the
wings (butterflies and moths) facilitate species
recognition (like football players).
Some insects use bright
colours, eyespots or other
distinctive patterns to scare
a way predators.
 Some
insect use dance-like body
movements to attract a mate or to
communicate with nest mate.
Most visual communicate are effective
during daylight, but some insect can
generate their own light and use visual
signals that can be seen at night.
Fire flies pulses of light are used in courtship
dialogue between a male (usually flying) and a
female (usually perched in the vegetation). Each
species has a unique flash pattern and response
time.
Males of Photinus
pyralis emit a signal J shape flash
during a rising flight movement and the female responds
with a single flash after a tow second intervals. However,
the male of Photinus consumilis emit a series of 3.5 short
flashes and a female respond after a double flash.
Some insect can communicate
using wavelength in the
ultraviolet light.
female cabbage butterflies
have an ultraviolet reflecting
scales on the dorsal wing
surface, when they fly, each
down stroke of the wing create
a brief flash U.V. that male
recognize them for mating.
In alfalfa butterflies, males have U.V. reflective
scales and missing scales is a sign for male
ageing.
It is the most common way of insect communication.
These chemicals are divided into 2 groups.
1- Phermons: Chemical signals that carry information
from one individual to another member of the same
species. These includes sex attractants, alarm
substance and many other intraspecific messages.
2- Allelochemicals: chemical signals that travel between
individual of different species. These includes
defensive signals such as repellents, compounds used
to locate suitable host plant, and other signals to
regulate interspecific behaviours.
- Phermones communications found in 1600
insects species.
Functions of Phermones:
1- Queen bee emit phermones that affects the
development of workers bee.
2- Ant use phermones to recruit nest mates to a
food source.
3- When laying their eggs, some flies moths and
beetles use certain phermones to repel insects
of the same and competing species, thereby
protecting their progeny.
4- Aphids give alarm phermones that urge neighbouring
aphids to flee from nearby predators.
5- Many insect females use phermones to attract
male for mating.
6- Some male moths use phermones to entice
female to mate with them.
Scorpionflies male
attack female by
mating pheromone
• some common exocrine glands that occur in ants
• Currently, over 70 distinct exocrine glands can be
distinguished in the social insects (at least 45 in ants,
21 in bees, 14 in wasps and 11 in termites).
Chemicals can be known by tasting or smelling
by insect. There are special receptors
(Chemical receptors ).
Olfactory receptors are usually thin-walled pegs,
cones, or plates with numerous pores through which
airborne molecules diffuse. Dendrites of sensory
neurons branch profusely within these pores and
may respond to very low concentrations of detectable
compounds (e.g. sex phermones).
Some receptors respond to a wide range of substances
while others are highly specific. Olfactory receptors are most
abundant on the antennae, but may also be associated with the
mouthparts or external genitalia.
*Taste receptors are commonly described
as thick-walled hairs where the
dendrites of several (usually up to five)
sensory neurons are exposed to the
environment through a single opening (pore)
in the cuticle.
*Each neuron appears to respond to a
different range of compounds
(e.g. sugar, salt, water, protein, acid, etc.).
Taste receptors are most abundant on the
mouthparts, but may also be found on the
antennae, tarsi, and genitalia (especially near
the tip of the female's ovipositor).
•For many insects, love is truly blind.
Using sex phermones in a tube made really try to
mate with that tube.
Many insects depend on physical contact because they have
poor vision and sound receptor.
Blister beetles (family Meloidae), courtship begins with a series
of antennal taps by the male on each side of the female body,
and she signal her receptivity by lifting her wing covers and
allowing him to clump on her back.
Social insects, such as ants, often stroke and groom each other
with their antennae and mouth parts. However, both touch
signals and chemical signals may be involved in these behaviours.
Bees communicate by dance
language.
Bees use dance as a form of communication for
distance and direction of food sources or nest
sites.
1- Round dance (running in a circle, is performed
for close sites)
2- Transitional (or sickle) dance, For sites
at an intermediate distance from the hive.
This dance involves running in a semicircular (or moon)
shape.
3- Waggle dance, the most complex of the dance types
performed by honeybees.
Bee Waggle Dance
The waggle dance is a language used by honey bee Apis
mellifera. Which give the bees the ability to communicate the food
sources locations.
The dance consists of different units or words of honey bee
language, these units consists of :
1- The pattern of the dance is conveying
distance information.
2- The number of interactions of the
dance that bee performs convey
distance information as well.
For example 100m = 9-10 interactions, 500m = 6 interactions, and
1500 m= 4 interactions.
3. The liveliness of the dance conveys information about the
quality of the food source. (The more excited the bee
appears the better
the quality of the food).
4. The angle of the dance conveys the direction of the food
source
5. The bee will stop her dance and give out a food sample at
other bee request.
6. Bee produce a sound to get attention of bees and to keep
their attention.
7. The distance measurement by measuring the energy used in
the fly.
Sounds are caused by vibrations that can
pass through air, water, and solid structures
•
• because sound waves move rapidly
through air, acoustic signals can be quickly
started, stopped, or modified to send a
time sensitive message.
Although people can hear crickets,
many insects make supersonic sounds
that are above a person's range of
hearing. These supersonic sounds have
more than 20,000 vibrations each
second.

some grasshopper and moths
produce ultrasonic sounds as 80000
hertz. Entomologist can study these
sounds by using Audi-transducer.
 Most insects detect sounds with a tympanic
membrane in their abdomen (e.g. grasshoppers
and moths) or in the tibia of the front legs (e.g.
crickets)
 Grasshoppers rub their legs against their wings to
advertise their presence. Many true bugs, beetles
and ants make sounds by rubbing various other
body parts together
• Vibrational communication is
widespread in insect social and
ecological interactions. - Insects used
water surface or plant surface to
produce vibrational sounds. Plants are
the most widely used substrate for
transmitting vibrational signals. Plant
species can vary in their signal
transmission properties.
Thank you