Sizing up a mate: variation in production and response to acoustic signals in Anopheles gambiae

Cator, Lauren J.; Ng’habi, Kija; Hoy, Ronald R.; Harrington, Laura C.

doi:10.1093/beheco/arq087

Cited by 65 publications

(115 citation statements)

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“…This could not only provide females with a mechanism for selecting high-quality males (Cator et al, 2010;Pennetier et al, 2010) but also play a role in the assortative mating of A. coluzzii and A. gambiae. Crucially, the hypothesis that assortative mating could be mediated by females is supported by the results of a recent study by Aboagye-Antwi et al (2015); behavioural assays in recombinant strains for the M and S markers in the X chromosome of both Anopheles species revealed that females, but not males, mated assortatively, indicating that a species recognition mechanism appears to be female dependent.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pre-copula acoustic behaviour of males in the malarial mosquitoes Anopheles coluzzii and Anopheles gambiae s.s. does not contribute to reproductive isolation

Simões

Gibson

Russell

2017

Journal of Experimental Biology

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We reveal that males of two members of the Anopheles gambiae s.l. species complex, Anopheles coluzzii and Anopheles gambiae s.s. (hereafter A. gambiae), which are both malaria vectors, perform a stereotypical acoustic behaviour in response to pure tones at frequencies that encompass the frequency range of the female's flight-tones. This behaviour resembles that described for Culex quinquefasciatus and consists of phonotactic flight initiated by a steep increase in wing-beat frequency (WBF) followed by rapid frequency modulation (RFM) of WBF when in close proximity to the sound source. RFM was elicited without acoustic feedback or the presence of a live female, but it appears to be a stereotypic behaviour in the immediate lead up to copula formation. RFM is an independent and different behavioural process from harmonic convergence interactions used by male-female pairs for mate recognition at earlier stages of mating. Acoustic threshold for RFM was used to plot behavioural audiograms from free-flying A. coluzzii and A. gambiae males. These audiograms were almost identical (minima ∼400 Hz) and encompassed the WBF ranges of A. coluzzii (378-601 Hz) and A. gambiae (373-590 Hz) females, indicating that males of the two species share similar frequency tuning and range. Furthermore, no differences were found between the two species in their WBFs, RFM behaviour or harmonic convergence ratios. These results indicate that assortative mating between A. coluzzii and A. gambiae is unlikely to be based on male-specific acoustic behaviours during RFM. The significance of these findings in relation to possible mechanisms for assortative mating is discussed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pre-copula acoustic behaviour of males in the malarial mosquitoes Anopheles coluzzii and Anopheles gambiae s.s. does not contribute to reproductive isolation

Simões

Gibson

Russell

2017

Journal of Experimental Biology

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“…The use of relative size responses allows for the removal of bias caused by the differences in body size of the sexes and reduces statistical problems. Yet changes in absolute size differences between the sexes may hold important information relating to mate assessment and performance [30][31][32]. Consequently, although we focus our efforts mainly on exploring the thermal dependence of SSD within species using relative metrics, we also consider the implications of absolute differences in size between the sexes, and how this changes with temperature.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Equal temperature–size responses of the sexes are widespread within arthropod species

2015

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Sexual size dimorphism (SSD) is often affected by environmental conditions, but the effect of temperature on SSD in ectotherms still requires rigorous investigation. We compared the plastic responses of size-at-maturity to temperature between males and females within 85 diverse arthropod species, in which individuals of both sexes were reared through ontogeny under identical conditions with excess food. We find that the sexes show similar relative (proportional) temperature-body size (T-S) responses on average. The high degree of similarity occurs despite an analysis that includes a wide range of animal body sizes, variation in degree of SSD and differences in the sign of the T-S response. We find no support for Rensch's rule, which predicts greater variation in male size, or indeed the reverse, greater female size variation. SSD shows no systematic temperature dependence in any of the 17 arthropod orders examined, five of which (Diptera, Orthoptera, Lepidoptera, Coleoptera and Calanoida) include more than six thermal responses. We suggest that the same proportional T-S response may generally have equivalent fitness costs and benefits in both sexes. This contrasts with effects of juvenile density, and food quantity/quality, which commonly result in greater size plasticity in females, suggesting these variables have different adaptive effects on SSD.

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“…This we feel is a natural way to incorporate selection in the model, and helps us clearly differentiate between the classes I and P . Note, there is no conclusive evidence, that sexual selection exists in mosquitoe mating, however there are a number of studies, [26,27,24,30,35,36] that suggest, this might be so.…”

Section: Model Formulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The buzz of a flying female mosquito acts as a mating signal, for attracting males [26]. Mate assessment interactions in swarming insects occurs when these insects enter swarms and this happens very quickly in flight [27]. In mosquito mating swarms, it is important to converge quickly to a mate harmonic signal before others, this is to ensure that a desirable mate locks faster into its signal, than the signal from a swarming competitor [31].…”

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confidence: 99%

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Global dynamics of a PDE model for Aedes aegypti mosquitoe incorporating female sexual preference

Parshad

Agusto

2011

Dynamics of Partial Differential Equations

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Abstract. In this paper we study the long time dynamics of a reaction diffusion system, describing the spread of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which are the primary cause of dengue infection. The system incorporates a control attempt via the sterile insect technique. The model incorporates female mosquitoes sexual preference for wild males over sterile males. We show global existence of strong solution for the system. We then derive uniform estimates to prove the existence of a global attractor in L 2 (Ω), for the system. The attractor is shown to be L ∞ (Ω) regular and posess state of extinction, if the injection of sterile males is large enough. We also provide upper bounds on the Hausdorff and fractal dimensions of the attractor.

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Sizing up a mate: variation in production and response to acoustic signals in Anopheles gambiae

Cited by 65 publications

References 50 publications

Pre-copula acoustic behaviour of males in the malarial mosquitoes Anopheles coluzzii and Anopheles gambiae s.s. does not contribute to reproductive isolation

Pre-copula acoustic behaviour of males in the malarial mosquitoes Anopheles coluzzii and Anopheles gambiae s.s. does not contribute to reproductive isolation

Equal temperature–size responses of the sexes are widespread within arthropod species

Global dynamics of a PDE model for Aedes aegypti mosquitoe incorporating female sexual preference

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