Genetic aspects of communication during male-male competition in the Madagascar hissing cockroach: honest signalling of size

Abstract

Male Madagascar hissing cockroaches, Gromphadorhina portentosa, engage in agonistic contests with other males and produce audible sounds or 'hisses' during these interactions. Hisses are used to maintain, rather than to establish, social relationships among males. The agonistic hisses of males are variable and could be used as signals to communicate size or competitive ability of an individual. In this study we examined how size influences male-male competition, as well as the genetic variation and covariation of male body size and components of the agonistic hiss. We found that male size affected the outcome of agonistic interactions between pairs of males: a male that dominated in a pair was significantly larger than the male that was subordinate. However, we found no differences in the hisses produced by dominant and subordinate males after controlling for male weight. We estimated heritabilities, evolvability and genetic correlations for male size and characteristics of the hiss from a full-sib analysis of brothers. The patterns of heritabilities and evolvabilities were very similar. The heritabilities of both male weight and duration of the hiss were significantly greater than zero. There was a significant positive genetic correlation between duration of the agonistic hiss and male weight, and a significant negative genetic correlation between hiss duration and the beginning dominant frequency. There was also a positive phenotypic correlation and a negative environmental correlation between male weight and hiss duration. Thus, hiss duration can signal the present influence of the environment on male size, whereas information from hiss duration and beginning dominant frequency can signal the male's ability to transmit genetic influence for size. Our results are discussed in terms of honest signalling and assessment during male-male and courtship interactions.

Male Mating Success in the Presence of a Conspecific Opponent in a Madagascar Hissing Cockroach, Gromphadorhina portentosa (Dictyoptera: Blaberidae)

“…Second, subordinate males may express characteristics preferred by females despite their defeat during male-male competition. For example, female G. portentosa have been shown to prefer larger males (this study; Clark & Moore 1995b) and characteristics of the hiss could be used by females to assess genotypic and environmental influences on male size (Clark & Moore 1995a). Finally, the addition of a female may have disrupted the social association between males.…”

“…All males were marked with a paper number glued to the pronotum which allowed the observer to identify individuals. To compare the behavior of dominant and subordinate males, I limited my data set to those pairs of males in which a clear winner and loser had been unambiguously determined in the previous study (Clark & Moore 1995a). Of the 55 pairs of males with clear social ranks, videotaped sequences of the pair with a female were available for 32 pairs.…”

“…Finally, the relationship between male size and mating success was examined to determine if larger males mate more than smaller males. As part of a previous study (Clark & Moore 1995a), all males used in this study were weighed three times with a Mettler balance to the nearest 0.001 g. An average weight for each male was used in this study. The weight of males that successfully mated was compared to the weight of their unsuccessful opponents with a paired comparisons t-test.…”

Insect Communication: Concepts, Channels and Contexts

“…동물의 의사소통은 신호의 생성, 전송, 감지 과정을 거쳐 일어 난다 (Bradbury and Vehrencamp, 1998 (Lissman, 1963;Matsubara, 1981)와 자기채널 (Keeton, 1974;Wiltschko and Wiltschko, 1988 (Clark and Moore, 1995;Hardouin et al, 2007;Weary and Fraser, 1995). 소리는 장애물이 있어도 주파수에 따라 회절(diffraction)하 여 전송된다( (Ewing, 1989;Greenfield, 2002) (Choi et al, 2011;Hack, 1997;Johnsson and Forser, 2002), 그 이유는 자원에 대한 가치가 영역 소유자가 높고, 자원에 대해 잘 알고 있기 때문이다 (Hurd, 2006;Krebs, 1982).…”

Social influences on nymphal development in the cockroach, Diploptera punctata

“…Adult size is an important life history trait that is often positively correlated with female fecundity (Gilbert, 1984) and male reproductive success (Partridge et al, 1987;Simmons, 1988;Clark & Moore, 1995). It is therefore reasonable to posit that social factors might influence the reproductive potential of many insects by modulating the number of stadia through which they develop.…”