Insect communication

BIO COMMUNICATION IN INSECTS
PRESENTED TO: Dr. Amritpal Sir
PRESENTED BY: Harsimrat Kaur Dulai
Ph.D.
Roll no. 1952204

INTRODUCTION
COMMUNICATION:
 It is the exchange of information between individuals.
 Adapted for symbolic communication, but most of insect’s
"language" skills are acquired through learning.
 For members of the insect species, it is an essential part of all
social interactions.

COMMUNICATION IN INSECTS
 The majority of insect species live a solitary life, with few
contacts between conspecific individuals.
 Social insects, however, are characterized by communities in
which they live in permanent contact with their nestmates.
 Bees and bumble bees, wasps, ants and termites since long have
fascinated man because of their well organized and often
impressive colonies.

Why do insectscommunicate?
 Recognition of kin or nestmates.
 Locating or identifying a member of the opposite sex.
 Facilitation of courtship and mating.
 Giving directions for location of food.
 Regulating spatial distribution of individuals, aggregation or
dispersal; establishing and maintaining a territory.
 Warning of danger; setting off an alarm.
 Expressing threat or submission.
 Mimicry

TYPESOFBIO-COMMUNICATION
A. Visual communication
B. Chemical communication
C. Tactile communication
D. Acoustic communication

A. VISUALCOMMUNICATION
 Most visual communications are effective during daylight,
but some insects can generate their own light and use
visual signals that can be seen at night.
 Also for partner location, prior to mating, the male’s big
compound eyes can help in finding the females .
 Male dragonflies recognizes female dragonflies.

 The male Photinus consimilis
During a rising flight
movement emits a series of
3.5 short flashes and a
female responds after a
double flash.
FIREFLIES

BIOLUMINESCENCE:
When oxygen combines with calcium, adenosine
triphosphate (ATP) and the chemical luciferin in the presence of
luciferase, a bioluminescent enzyme, light is produced.
Unlike a light bulb, which produces a lot of heat in addition to
light, a firefly's light is cold light, without a lot of energy being
lost as heat.
LIGHT PRODUCING MECHANISM IN
FIREFLIES

1. In order for this reaction to occur, a chemical named
“Luciferin”, which emits light, is required.
2. Then, oxygen is needed to oxidize the reaction.
3. As a result of this chemical reaction , energy is released in a
form of light due to energy from the excitation of the
electrons in the ions. The energy of photons of visible light
produced is about 50 kcal.

In alfalfa butterflies, males
have U.V. reflective scales and
missing scales is a sign for
male ageing.

1. Batesian mimicry
Danaus chrysippus
(The Plain tiger)
Model-Non edible
Hypolimna smisippus
(Female Danaid Eggfly)
Mimic-Edible
2. Mullerian mimicry
Heliconius butterfly genus
TYPES OF MIMICRY

SURPRISEANDSTARTLEEFFECT
•Surprise combined with rapid escape flight is
often a sufficient defense.
•Startle is the combination of the elements
of surprise and fright.
Hawk moth larva
Spinx moth
Under winged moth

CRYPSIS
 Crypsis, avoiding detection by
blending into the background
is one of the most common
defense mechanisms.
Toad bugAmazon caterpillar

EXAMPLES FOR
CAMOUFLAGE
Brimstone butterfly
Camo moth
Swallowtail butterfly

BEHAVIOURALAPPROACH
1)APOSEMATISM:
The opposite of crypsis or
a warning signal to
predators.
Patterned combinations of
reds, yellows, oranges,
whites, and blacks.
Warning colouration
boldly signals that this
insect is toxic, is bad
tasting, or can sting or cause
injury.
Cinnabar moth larva
Automeris metzli
(Saturniidae)

2)THANATOSIS:
 Things that eat other things
tend to quickly lose interest in
dead prey, so some insects that
employ the strategy of playing
dead and can often escape
unharmed.

B.CHEMICAL COMMUNICATION
•A total of 731 insect species were involved in responses to the 323
chemical compounds.
•Insect behaviours that are modulated by chemical senses, or the
complexity of structures responsible for chemical signalling and
perception, the chemical communication channel is a predominant
feature of insects (Greenfield, 2002).
•The small to minute body sizes of insects may be largely responsible
for their general reliance on chemical senses.

SEMIOCHEMICALS
A broad term for chemicals involved in insect
communication is semiochemical, from the Greek
semeion sign (Law and Regnier, 1971).
Classification:
1.Pheromone (Intraspecific signals)
2.Allelochemicals (interspecific signals)
1. PHEROMONE: chemical substance
produced and released into the environment
by an animal, especially a mammal or an
insect, affecting the behaviour or physiology
of others of its species.

TYPES OF PHEROMONE:
• PRIMER PHEROMONE
• RELEASER PHEROMONE
• TRAIL PHEROMONE
• ALARM PHEROMONE
• AGGREGATION PHEROMONE
• SEX PHEROMONE

Primer pheromone:
The most famous example of a primer pheromone is the
honey bee queen mandibular pheromone (a mixture of two fatty
acids: 9-ODA and 9-HDA) which suppresses ovary development
in worker bees (Free, 1987).

IN TERMITES:
 The king(s) and queen(s) inhibit the formation of neotenics
using a putative, non-volatile, inhibitory chemical substance.
Which is spread among nestmates by trophallaxis
 When this inhibitory signal is decreased neotenics form from the
immature termites.
 CHC’s may also be involved in fertility signaling or
reproductive control. (Liebig et al. 2009; Weil et al. 2009).
BROOD CARE BEHAVIOUR:
The eggs laid by the queen(s) are collected, handled, piled at
specific spots by workers (and in exceptional cases by soldiers;
Hanus et al. 2005), and protected from pathogens and
desiccation by worker’s saliva.

Releaser pheromone:
•The most commonly known are sex pheromones, which are
highly species specific and serve to attract mates for
reproduction.
•The first sex pheromone was identified in 1959 from
the silk moth Bombyx mori (Butenandt et al., 1959).
•Many further insect sex pheromones have been identified to
date and a number are commercially used in pheromone traps
for pest control (Bell, 2004)

Name of the insect Pheromone
 Pink bollworm,
Pectinophora gossypiell
 Gabbage looper,
Trichoplusia
 Tobacco cutworm,
Spodopteralitura
 Honey bee ueen, Apis sp.
Gossyplure
Looplure
Spodolure, litlure, Helilure
Queen’s substance

Trail pheromones, employed by social insects for orientation
and to recruit nest mates to a suitable food source.
They are produced by a variety of glands and can be composed
of numerous different, mostly volatile compounds.
When navigating their territory, ants and termites deposit these
pheromones on the ground thus developing an extensive net
of chemical routes. (Holldobler and Wilson, 1990; Pasteels
and Bordereau, 1998; Kaib, 1999).
Trail pheromone:

 Lays trails and lead to feed.
Chemical nature of trail pheromones are
decenoic acids ( in formicine ants).
hexanoic, heptanoic,
Trail pheromones can be used to kill ants.
Trail pheromones mixed with baits can attract ants which when
transported by ants to their nest it will kills all young ones.
ANTS

 Some ant species use ‘propaganda’
pheromones to confuse the
ants and make them fight
themselves.
enemy
among
 Honeybee releases orientation pheromones, a mixture of
geraniol, citral, farnesol and other minor compounds from their
Nasonov gland into the air in a number of orienting situations.
(Free, 1987; Winston, 1987).

 Alarm pheromones are chemical substances released by
insects to warn members of the same species about the
presence of or attack by an enemy (mostly a predator).
 This warning elicits different behaviour in different insects as
listed below:
1.) Dispersion or escape in aphids and bugs.
2.) Aggression in ants and soldier termites.
3.) Attraction in wasps and worker bees.
• The chemical nature of alarm pheromones are terpenes (aphids),
aldehydes (Hemiptera) and formic acid (ants).
Alarm phermone:

In ants:
All Formicid species were subsequently found to produce and
use an alarm pheromone (Holldobler and Wilson 1990).
The response to “aggressive alarms” is characterized by rapid
movements oriented toward the emitter and by aggressive attitudes
ranging from mandible and gaster movements.
Responses to “panic alarms” entail escape, dispersion, and flight
behaviors.

Alarm pheromone in Honeybees:
A vital role in honeybee colony defense is played by so-called
guard bees, which patrol the nest entrance and represent the first
line of colony defense.
These guards are also specialized for the production of
alarm pheromone which they release to recruit nestmates from
the interior of the colony in case of danger (Boch et al., 1962;
Collins et al., 1982).
The perception of the pheromone increases workers movement
and promotes aggression.

 Pheromones which induce aggregation or congregation of
insects for protection, reproduction and feeding or
combinations are called aggregation pheromones.
Eg: Bark beetles start to bore into the bark and release a long
range aggregation pheromone.
 A mixture of terpenoids some of which are synthesized,
others produced by symbiotic bacteria in the beetle gut or
sequestered from host tree compounds (Greenfield, 2002;
Wyatt, 2003).
Aggregation pheromone:

Sex pheromone:
 sex pheromones indicate the availability of the female for
breeding. Male animals may also emit pheromones that
convey information about their species and genotype.
 insect species, such as the ant Leptothorax acervorum, the
moths Helicoverpa zea and Agrotis ipsilon, the
bee Xylocopa varipuncta and the butterfly Edith's
checkerspot release sex pheromones to attract a mate, and
many lepidopterans (moths and butterflies) can detect a
potential mate from as far away as 10 km.
 Some insects, such as ghost moths, use pheromones
during lek mating.

•The communication between two different species of organisms
or insects.
•It is classified into Allomones, Kairomones, Synomones, and
Apneumones.
ALLOMONES:
•From Greek word (allos+hormon=excite others) allomone is a
chemical or mixture of chemicals released by one organism that
induces a response in another organism which is advantageous to
the releaser.
•The defensive secretions of insects and plants that are
poisonous to attacking predators.
2. ALLELOCHEMICALS:

 The neotrophical social wasp Mischocyttarus drewseni
applies a secretion to the stem of its nest that repels
foraging ants.
 Some trophical flowers which are pollinated by bats emit
odours which attract bat to the flowers.
Examples:
oSting gland in bees
oFormic acid in ants
 Allomones also serve plants as defence mechanism
against
plants.
herbivores and reduce competition with other

KAIROMONES:
Kairomone is a chemical or mixture of
chemicals released by one organism that
induces a response in another organism.
Helpful to recipient.
Eg.Heptanoic acid released by larva of potato
tuber moth Phthorimaea operculella increases
searching by its parasitoid
Farnesene secreted by codling moth larva
attracts its parasitoid

SYNOMONES:
 Chemical released by one organism that induce a
response in another species.
 Helpful to emitter and receiver.
 It encourages mutualistic relation between
organisms.
 Eg. Termites and protozoans .
Eg: Flower fragrance:
Orchids (Ophrys) attract males of solitary bees or
Dacini fruit fly by a mixture of compounds
resembling the sex pheromone of con-specific
females but males are not awarded with nectar
instead they receive pheromone booster.

APNEUMONES:
 Chemical substances emitted by a non- living material that
evoke a behavioural or physiological reaction adoptively
favourable to a receiving organism, but detrimental to
another species, which may be found in or on the non- living
material.
 Eg: An ichunuemonid parasite of Venturia canescens is attracted
by the smell of the oatmeal, which is the food of its host.
 Here it is advantageous to the recipient which is the parasitoid but
detrimental to host insect living on the oat meal (non- living
material)

C. TACTILE COMMUNICATION
"Keep in touch!" For you, it's probably just a metaphor,
but for some insects it's really a channel of communication
Since many insects have poor vision and sound
perception, physical contact provides an important avenue
of communication.

In blister beetles (family Meloidae), courtship begins
with a series of antennal taps by the male on each side of
the female's body.
She signals her receptivity by lifting her wing covers
(elytra) and allowing him to climb on her back.
But to complete his quest, the male must continue
tapping, alternating from side to side at just the
right frequency until the female is stimulated to
extend her genitalia and begin mating.

Antennal tapping is also an essential component of communication
in both ants and termites.
It's not clear exactly what information may be exchanged, but it
certainly involves nestmate recognition and leads to exchange
of food through trophallaxis.

• If tapping stops, leader instinctively turns around and searches
in ever-widening circles until she re-establishes contact with the
follower.
• Antennal tapping on the hind legs
is used during tandem running in
both ants and termites.
• This is a "follow-the-leader" behavior
in which the tapping informs the
leader that she has not lost her
disciple.

IN TERMITES:
 Drumming behaviour occurs in both soldiers and
workers,
 But its alarm pheromone capacity is low.
 A chain of vibrating soldiers can spread an alarm
across a distance of more than a meter in less than a
second (Rohrig et al. 1999).

DANCE LANGUAGE OF HONEY
BEES.
Karl von Frisch, 1886-1982
Austrian, began work in 1919
Trained European honey bees, Apis
mellifera, to feeders
First believed bees used flower
scents or other odors to find food.
Began to pay close attention to
dances performed by returning
foragers.

1. “Round dance”
• When food source is < 50 m from
hive.
• After distributing some of her new-
found nectar to waiting bees the
scout will begin running in a small
circle, switching direction.
• After the dance ends food is again
distributed at this or some other
place on the comb and the dance
may be repeated three or (rarely)
more times.
• The round dance does not give
directional information.

2. “Waggle dance”
• When food source is > 50
meters away
Waggle run
-Abdomen
wagging and
wing
fluttering
-Angle
repeated with
respect to
vertical, or
gravity
(here 20°
right)

SCOUT: finds new food
sources & dances
RECRUITS: follow dances
& then forage

Direction of the food source is
indicated by the direction the
dancer faces during the
straight portion of the dance
when the bee is waggling. If
she waggles while facing
straight upward, than the food
source may be found in the
direction of the sun.

If she waggles at an angle 60 degrees to the left of upward
the food source may be found 60 degrees to the left of the
sun.

If the dancer waggles 120 degrees to the right of upward, the food
source may be found 120 degrees to the right of the sun.
The dancer emits sounds during the waggle run that
help the recruits determine direction in the darkness of the hive.

COMMUNICATION IN TREEHOPPERS
Certain treehoppers (order Hemiptera: family Membracidae)
produce vibrations in the tissue of their host plant that can be
felt by all other treehoppers on the same plant.
The signals apparently work as an alarm system, and in
some species, they may be used by nymphs to elicit protective
maternal behaviour.
Substrate vibrations can be a particularly effective
communication system for small insects who cannot generate an
acoustic signal loud enough to be heard more than few
inches away.

D. ACOUSTIC COMMUNICATION
Acoustic communication can be made to vary in frequency,
amplitude and periodicity.
Together, these three variables can create an extremely wide and
complex range of signals from an insect's mating call to
human speech and vocal music.
Since sound waves move rapidly through air (about 331 m/sec),
acoustic signals can be quickly started, stopped, or modified
to send a time-sensitive message

courtship songs produced by sex-specific scales on the
forewings and mesothorax.
In order to protect the pair from conspecific competitors
and predators, this male moth produces the sounds in the
female’s ear, which provide a private communication channel
between them. (Conner, 2014).
ACOUSTIC SOUND PRODUCTION IN MOTH:
 “Whispering” Moths exemplify another
antidetection strategy (Nakano et al., 2008).
 Ostrinia furnicalis,
moths, use
male Asian corn borer
specialized very low intensity

 Aposematic sounds often converge
structurally having broad frequency
ranges, low pattern complexity.
 Such signals are readily detected by
wide range of predators.
 Toxic tiger moths (Arctiidae) send
loud return sounds to approaching
insectivorous bats.
 These sounds warn the bat that the moth
is unpalatable and potentially harmful,
and may also interfere with the
echolocation capabilities of bats.
APOSEMATIC SOUND

Drosophila species (Von Schilcher, 1976).
CATEGORIES OF SOUND PRODUCING MECHANISMS
(Claridge, 2005)
A. Vibration (including Tremulation)
The oscillatory movement of the wings of an insect sets up
regions of compression and rarefaction and a vibrational sound is
produced.
EXAMPLES :
The flight sound, made by the wings, in swarming mosquitoes is
considered to be used for species-specific recognition. (Gibson,
Warren, & Russell, 2010; Roth, 1948).
 Wing vibration is also used in the courtship dances of

B. Percussion – Striking one part of the body against another as
a communication system for pair formation.
EXAMPLE:
1)The Australian moth (Lepidoptera); males produce
ultrasonic acoustical long distance signals to attract sexually
receptive females and to establish territorial residency in
competition with other males (Alcock & Bailey, 1995).
2)Species of the suborder Arctoperlaria (Plecoptera) produce
drumming signals on the substrate as a mating system. The male
emits a species-specific call searching for the female. (Stewart &
Sandberg, 2005).

•In Orthopteran, insects respond stridulation from the receptive female
orientation towards and their locomotion to the male.
“Rivalry song”
The female arrived near the male, stridulating in response to mate
song; the male, once noticing the female, sings the courtship
song, engages the genitalia and copulation occurs
(Haskell, 1958).
C. Stridulation –
Stridulation consists of sounds produced by frictional
mechanisms, involving the movements of two specialized
body parts against each
manner (Claridge, 2005).
other in a systematic patterned

IN TERMITES:
 It produced drumming.
 It has also been hypothesized that the synchronized
drumming of Macrotermitinae, evokes a rhythmical
hissing may act as an aposematic signal to warn away
predators. (Howse 1984; Connetable et al. 1999).

D. Click mechanisms
• These sounds depend on the deformation of a
modified area of cuticle, generally by contraction and
relaxation of specialized musculature within the insect
body.
• This acoustic signal constitutes the first step in pair
formation, attracting females at long distances, and is
involved in male-male interactions (Sueur &
Aubin, 2003).

For example, the males of Tibicina
(Hemiptera) cicada species produce a
sustained and monotonous calling
song by tymbal activity.
TYMBALS: Muscular vibration of
drum like membranes
The loudest calls in the insect
world come from male cicadas.
The females are silent.

during copulation, and during aggressive encounter.
Adults and nymphs of both sexes also hiss when disturbed
(Nelson & Fraser, 1980).
E. Air expulsion:
This sound is described as an exhalatory sound, frequently expelled
via the tracheal spiracles, however little is known about its function
(Ewing, 1989).
EXAMPLE:
The Madagascar hissing cockroach Gromphadorhina
portentosa produces audible hiss sounds from spiracles.
 Adult males hiss in three social contexts: during courtship,

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