Insects and People: Insect Communication

What is Communication?

A way of passing information on between organisms that may alter their behavior

What are some methods insects use for communication?

Auditory, Vibrations, Chemicals

Why Communicate?

* Courtship and mating
* Identifying food sources
* Alarming of predators
* Aggregation into groups
* Social insects depend on communication to maintain the status quo!
* Time to mate, divide labor, etc.

Sound Production

* Stridulation
* CALCULATING TEMPERATURE FROM SNOWY TREE CRICKET CALLS:
* Cicadas can produce sound using a tymbal organ that has muscles directly attached
* Some insects produce sound through banging their bodies or strumming against a substrate (drumming)
* Hissing
* Wing-beating

Stridulation

A sharp chirping or hissing noise produced by scraping parts of the body together

CALCULATING TEMPERATURE FROM SNOWY TREE CRICKET CALLS:

No. of chirps in 15 seconds + 40

tymbal

Cicadas can produce sound using a ___ organ that has muscles directly attached

Drumming

Some insects produce sound through banging their bodies or strumming against a substrate

What are 2 other ways insects use sound to communicate?

* Hissing
* Wing-beating

Visual Cues

* Swarming
* Wing Flapping
* Color Flashing
* Light

Production of Light in fireflies requires:

Luciferin, Luciferase, Oxygen, and ATP (Energy)

Physical Communication

* Very common among social insect
* But can be found in non-social or sub-social as well
* Used to recognize nest siblings, predators, and mates

**Allomone**

Chemical produced by one species and detected by a different species

Do allomones benefit the sender or receiver?

Benefits the sender and harms the receiver

EX: an insect puts out a chemical mimic of its prey’s sexual pheromones, luring it in for the kill

Kairomone

Chemical produced by one species and detected by another

EX: Human sweat has scent that attract mosquitos

Do kairomones benefit the receiver or the sender?

Benefits the receiver at the expense of the sender

Corn ___ attracts caterpillar, starts eating plant. Plant reacts by releasing chemical to attract parasitic wasp. Parasitic wasp finds caterpillar by detecting its kairomone

kairomone

Pheromone

Chemical produced by one species and detected by other members of the same species.

Do pheromones benefit the sender or receiver?

Usually benefits both the sender and receiver

EX: female emits a sexual pheromone to attract a male

What are pheromones used for?

Sex attractants

Alarm Pheromones

Dispersal Pheromones

Aggregation Pheromones

Caste Determination Pheromones

Marker Pheromones