Journal article
The effect of male competition on the courtship song of Drosophila melanogaster
Journal of insect behavior, Vol.15(1), pp.109-120
2002
DOI: 10.1023/A:1014488330548
Abstract
The courtship song of Drosophila has been extensively used as a model system for studies of sexual selection and species recognition. Traditionally, the courtship song has been recorded from males placed individually with a female. However, under natural conditions females are exposed to multiple courting males, and the effect of their joint signal on mate recognition by the female is not yet understood. Here, we recorded the courtship behavior of D. melanogaster males singing either individually to a female lpar;1:1) or in the presence of an additional male lpar;2:1). We compared the structure of the male song in the two experimental designs. Our results show that when two males courted a female their songs could overlap each other. Males produced a significantly different signal in the presence of competition; the duration of each song component was significantly shorter and the rate of singing was markedly lower. The present study demonstrates that male competition can dramatically alter the acoustic signal detected by the female.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- The effect of male competition on the courtship song of Drosophila melanogaster
- Creators
- Eran TAUBER - Department of Biological Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242-1324, United StatesDaniel F EBERL - Department of Biological Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242-1324, United States
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Journal of insect behavior, Vol.15(1), pp.109-120
- DOI
- 10.1023/A:1014488330548
- ISSN
- 0892-7553
- eISSN
- 1572-8889
- Publisher
- Springer; New York, NY
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 2002
- Academic Unit
- Iowa Neuroscience Institute; Biology
- Record Identifier
- 9984070755602771
Metrics
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