Velilla Estefania, Polajnar Jernej, Virant-Doberlet Meta, Commandeur Daniel, Simon Ralph, Cornelissen Johannes H C, Ellers Jacintha, Halfwerk Wouter
Department of Ecological Science Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Amsterdam The Netherlands.
National Institute of Biology Ljubljana Slovenia.
Ecol Evol. 2020 Sep 30;10(21):12277-12289. doi: 10.1002/ece3.6857. eCollection 2020 Nov.
Many insects use plant-borne vibrations to obtain important information about their environment, such as where to find a mate or a prey, or when to avoid a predator. Plant species can differ in the way they vibrate, possibly affecting the reliability of information, and ultimately the decisions that are made by animals based on this information. We examined whether the production, transmission, and possible perception of plant-borne vibrational cues is affected by variation in leaf traits. We recorded vibrations of 69 caterpillars foraging on four plant species that differed widely in their leaf traits (cabbage, beetroot, sunflower, and corn). We carried out a transmission and an airborne noise absorption experiment to assess whether leaf traits influence amplitude and frequency characteristics, and background noise levels of vibrational chewing cues. Our results reveal that species-specific leaf traits can influence transmission and potentially perception of herbivore-induced chewing vibrations. Experimentally-induced vibrations attenuated stronger on plants with thicker leaves. Amplitude and frequency characteristics of chewing vibrations measured near a chewing caterpillar were, however, not affected by leaf traits. Furthermore, we found a significant effect of leaf area, water content and leaf thickness-important plant traits against herbivory, on the vibrations induced by airborne noise. On larger leaves higher amplitude vibrations were induced, whereas on thicker leaves containing more water airborne noise induced higher peak frequencies. Our findings indicate that variation in leaf traits can be important for the transmission and possibly detection of vibrational cues.
许多昆虫利用植物传播的振动来获取有关其环境的重要信息，例如在哪里找到配偶或猎物，或者何时躲避捕食者。植物物种在振动方式上可能存在差异，这可能会影响信息的可靠性，并最终影响动物基于此信息所做出的决策。我们研究了植物传播的振动信号的产生、传播以及可能的感知是否会受到叶片性状变化的影响。我们记录了69只在四种叶片性状差异很大的植物（卷心菜、甜菜根、向日葵和玉米）上觅食的毛虫的振动情况。我们进行了一项传播实验和一项空气传播噪声吸收实验，以评估叶片性状是否会影响振动啃食信号的幅度和频率特征以及背景噪声水平。我们的研究结果表明，物种特异性的叶片性状会影响食草动物引起的啃食振动的传播，并可能影响其感知。实验诱导的振动在叶片较厚的植物上衰减更强。然而，在啃食毛虫附近测量的啃食振动的幅度和频率特征不受叶片性状的影响。此外，我们发现叶面积、含水量和叶片厚度（对食草动物很重要的植物性状）对空气传播噪声引起的振动有显著影响。在较大的叶片上诱导出更高幅度的振动，而在含水量更多的较厚叶片上，空气传播噪声诱导出更高的峰值频率。我们的研究结果表明，叶片性状的变化对于振动信号的传播以及可能的检测可能很重要。
