Department of Forest Entomology, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, Tsukuba, Japan.
Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan ; College of Bioresource Sciences, Nihon University, Fujisawa, Japan.
Zoological Lett. 2016 Aug 26;2(1):18. doi: 10.1186/s40851-016-0053-4. eCollection 2016.
Vibrational senses are vital for plant-dwelling animals because vibrations transmitted through plants allow them to detect approaching predators or conspecifics. Little is known, however, about how coleopteran insects detect vibrations.
We investigated vibrational responses of the Japanese pine sawyer beetle, Monochamus alternatus, and its putative sense organs. This beetle showed startle responses, stridulation, freezing, and walking in response to vibrations below 1 kHz, indicating that they are able to detect low-frequency vibrations. For the first time in a coleopteran species, we have identified the sense organ involved in the freezing behavior. The femoral chordotonal organ (FCO), located in the mid-femur, contained 60-70 sensory neurons and was distally attached to the proximal tibia via a cuticular apodeme. Beetles with operated FCOs did not freeze in response to low-frequency vibrations during walking, whereas intact beetles did. These results indicate that the FCO is responsible for detecting low-frequency vibrations and mediating the behavioral responses. We discuss the behavioral significance of vibrational responses and physiological functions of FCOs in M. alternatus.
Our findings revealed that substrate vibrations mediate behavioral responses via femoral chordotonal organs in M. alternatus.
对于生活在植物上的动物来说，振动感知至关重要，因为通过植物传播的振动可以让它们察觉接近的捕食者或同种个体。然而，关于鞘翅目昆虫如何感知振动，我们知之甚少。
我们研究了日本松材象虫及其可能的感觉器官对振动的反应。这种甲虫对低于 1 kHz 的振动表现出惊跳反应、摩擦发声、冻结和行走，这表明它们能够检测低频振动。这是在鞘翅目昆虫中首次鉴定出与冻结行为相关的感觉器官。位于中股骨的股索感觉器官 (FCO) 包含 60-70 个感觉神经元，并通过角质附肢远端附着在近端胫骨上。在行走过程中，接受了 FCO 操作的甲虫不会对低频振动产生冻结反应，而完整的甲虫则会。这些结果表明，FCO 负责检测低频振动并介导行为反应。我们讨论了振动反应和 FCO 在 M. alternatus 中的生理功能的行为意义。
我们的发现表明，基质振动通过 M. alternatus 的股索感觉器官介导行为反应。
