Nityananda Vivek, Balakrishnan Rohini
Biosciences Institute, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Henry Wellcome Building, Newcastle University, United Kingdom NE2 3AE, UK
Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru - 560012, India.
J Exp Biol. 2021 Mar 30. doi: 10.1242/jeb.241877.
The ability to entrain to auditory stimuli has been a powerful method to investigate the comparative rhythm abilities of different animals. While synchrony to regular simple rhythms is well documented, synchrony to complex stimuli, with multiple components at unequal time intervals, is rarer. Several katydid species with simple calls have been shown to achieve synchrony as part of their natural calling interactions in multi-individual choruses. Yet no study so far has demonstrated synchrony in any insect with a complex call. Using natural calling behaviour and playback experiments, we investigated acoustic synchrony and the mechanisms underlying it in the katydid species 'Two Part Caller'. This species has a complex call consisting of a long trill followed by two or more chirps. We found that individual males synchronized trills and, to a lesser extent, chirps. Further investigation of trill synchrony showed that the timing of trills is modified by external trills but not chirps. Chirp synchrony is modified by external chirps, but also by trills. We suggest a qualitative two-oscillator model underlying synchrony in this species and discuss the implications for the evolution of acoustic synchrony.
与听觉刺激同步的能力一直是研究不同动物比较节奏能力的有力方法。虽然与规则简单节奏的同步已有充分记录，但与具有不等时间间隔的多个成分的复杂刺激同步则较为罕见。几种具有简单叫声的螽斯物种已被证明在多只个体组成的合唱中，作为其自然鸣叫互动的一部分能够实现同步。然而，迄今为止尚无研究表明任何具有复杂叫声的昆虫能实现同步。通过自然鸣叫行为和回放实验，我们研究了螽斯物种“双声鸣叫者”的声学同步及其潜在机制。该物种具有复杂的叫声，由一个长颤音后跟两个或更多啁啾声组成。我们发现雄性个体能使颤音同步，啁啾声同步程度较低。对颤音同步的进一步研究表明，外部颤音会改变颤音的时间，但啁啾声不会。啁啾声同步不仅会被外部啁啾声改变，也会被颤音改变。我们提出了该物种同步背后的定性双振荡器模型，并讨论了其对声学同步进化的影响。
