Cator Lauren J, Harrington Laura C
Department of Entomology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.
Anim Behav. 2011 Oct 1;82(4):627-633. doi: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2011.07.013.
During courtship males often communicate information about their fitness to females. The matching of harmonic components of flight tone in male-female pairs of flying mosquitoes, or harmonic convergence, was recently described. This behaviour occurs prior to mating and has been suggested to function in mate selection. We investigated the hypothesis that harmonic convergence is a component of mosquito courtship. A key prediction of this hypothesis is that harmonic convergence should provide information to potential mates about fitness benefits. We measured the effect of harmonic convergence behaviour on the direct and indirect benefits obtained by females. We found that the sons of pairs that converged at harmonic frequencies prior to mating had increased mating success and that these offspring were themselves more likely to converge prior to mating. These results suggest that males may be able to signal information about their genetic quality to females prior to mating and that this signal may be heritable. These findings are important for our understanding of mosquito behaviour and have applications in the control of mosquito-borne disease. This study also contributes to the study of male-female interactions and signal coevolution.
在求偶过程中，雄性通常会向雌性传达有关自身健康状况的信息。最近有人描述了雌雄飞行蚊子对中飞行音调谐波成分的匹配，即谐波趋同现象。这种行为发生在交配之前，有人认为它在配偶选择中起作用。我们研究了谐波趋同是蚊子求偶组成部分这一假设。该假设的一个关键预测是，谐波趋同应该向潜在配偶提供有关健康益处的信息。我们测量了谐波趋同行为对雌性获得的直接和间接益处的影响。我们发现，在交配前以谐波频率趋同的配对所生的儿子交配成功率更高，而且这些后代自身在交配前也更有可能趋同。这些结果表明，雄性可能能够在交配前向雌性发出有关其遗传质量的信号，而且这个信号可能是可遗传的。这些发现对于我们理解蚊子行为很重要，并且在控制蚊媒疾病方面有应用价值。这项研究也为男女互动和信号共同进化的研究做出了贡献。
