Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Pre-Mating Reproductive Isolation in Tiger Beetles (Carabidae: Cicindelinae): an Examination of the Role of Visual and Morphological Feedback

  • Published:
Journal of Insect Behavior Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The biological species concept depends on mechanisms isolating reproduction to taxonomically define a species and to explain the disadvantages, and subsequent lack, of hybridization. In co-occurring tiger beetles (Carabidae: Cicindelinae), these between-species barriers are not readily apparent. To understand the characteristics potentially responsible for this isolation, we conducted behavioral and morphological experiments with two pairs of tiger beetle species. Choice trials showed males use visual cues to trigger the pursuit of potential mates and prefer females who appear similar in color. Geometric morphometric techniques allowed us to quantify shape differences in the mandibles of all four species. Previously, it was proposed that the mandible-coupling sulcus pairing acted as a lock-and-key mechanism to provide feedback necessary for species recognition. Our results, however, suggest that although there are significant differences in shape, these differences do not provide any feedback to the male or enhance his ability to retain his grasp on the female. Taken together, these findings suggest that vision, rather than the traditional mandibular lock-and-key hypothesis, may play a key role in reproductive isolation for co-occurring tiger beetle species.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Acorn JH (1988) Mimetic tiger beetles and the puzzle of cicindelid coloration (Coleoptera: Cicindelidae). Coleopt Bull:28–33

  • Adams DC, Otárola-Castillo E (2013) Geomorph: an r package for the collection and analysis of geometric morphometric shape data. Methods Ecol Evol 4:393–399

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baldwin J, Johnsen S (2009) The importance of color in mate choice of the blue crab Callinectes sapidus. J Exp Biol 212:3762–3768

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barton NH, Hewitt GM (1985) Analysis of hybrid zones. Annu Rev Ecol Syst 16:113–148

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bates D, Maechler M, Bolker B, Walker S (2015) Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. J Stat Softw 67:1–48

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bonduriansky R (2001) The evolution of male mate choice in insects: a synthesis of ideas and evidence. Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc 76:305–339. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1464793101005693

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Brust ML, Knisley CB, Spomer SM, Miwa K (2012) Observations of oviposition behavior among north American tiger beetle (Coleoptera: Carabidae: Cicindelinae) species and notes on mass rearing. Coleopt Bull 66:309–314

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cassola F, Pearson DL (2000) Global patterns of tiger beetle species richness (Coleoptera: Cicindelidae). Biol Conserv 95:197–208

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eberhard WG (1985) Sexual selection and animal genitalia. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Eberhard WG (1996) Female control: sexual selection by cryptic female choice. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ

    Google Scholar 

  • Ellers J, Boggs CL, Mallet J (2003) The evolution of wing color: male mate choice opposes adaptive wing color divergence in Colias butterflies. Evolution 57:1100–1106

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fielding K, Knisley CB (1995) Mating behavior in two tiger beetles, Cicindela dorsalis and C. puritana (Coleoptera: Cicindelidae). Entomol News 106:61–67

    Google Scholar 

  • Freitag R (1974) Selection for a non-genitalic mating structure in female tiger beetles of the genus Cicindela (Coleoptera: Cicindelidae). Can Entomol 106:561–568

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Freitag R (1966) The female genitalia of four species of tiger beetles (Coleoptera: Cicindelidae). Can Entomol 98:942–952. https://doi.org/10.4039/Ent98942-9

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Freitag R, Olynyk JE, Barnes BL (1980) Mating behavior and genitalic counterparts in tiger beetles (Carabidae: Cicindelinae). Int J Invertebr Reprod 2:131–135

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goodall C (1991) Procrustes methods in the statistical analysis of shape. J R Stat Soc Ser B Methodol 53:285–339

    Google Scholar 

  • Hochkirch A, Lemke I (2011) Asymmetric mate choice, hybridization, and hybrid fitness in two sympatric grasshopper species. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 65:1637–1645

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kronforst MR, Young LG, Kapan DD, McNeely C, O'Neill RJ, Gilbert LE (2006) Linkage of butterfly mate preference and wing color preference cue at the genomic location of wingless. Proc Natl Acad Sci 103:6575–6580

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Lovari S, Favilli L, Eusebi MP, Cassola F (1992) The effects of prey movement, size and colour in the attack/avoidance behaviour of the tiger beetle Cephalota circumdata leonschaeferi (Cassola) (Coleoptera Cicindelidae). Ethol Ecol Evol 4:321–331

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Masly JP (2012) 170 years of “lock-and-key”: genital morphology and reproductive isolation. Int J Evol Biol 2012:1–10. https://doi.org/10.1155/2012/247352

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morehouse NI, Rutowski RL (2010) In the eyes of the beholders: female choice and avian predation risk associated with an exaggerated male butterfly color. Am Nat 176:768–784

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Paarmann W, Irmler U, Adis J (1982) Pentacomia egregia Chaud. (Carabidae, Cicindelinae), a univoltine species in the Amazonian inundation forest. Coleopt Bull 36:183–188

    Google Scholar 

  • Palmer M (1976) Natural history and behavior of Pseudoxychila tarsalis Bates. Cicindela 8:61–92

    Google Scholar 

  • Pearson DL (1985) The function of multiple anti-predator mechanisms in adult tiger beetles (Coleoptera: Cicindelidae). Ecol Entomol 10:65–72

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pearson DL (1988) Biology of tiger beetles. Annu Rev Entomol 33:123–147

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pearson DL, Cassola F (1992) World-wide species richness patterns of tiger beetles (Coleoptera: Cicindelidae): indicator taxon for biodiversity and conservation studies. Conserv Biol 6:376–391

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pearson DL, Mury EJ (1979) Character divergence and convergence among tiger beetles (Coleoptera: Cicindelidae). Ecology 60:557–566

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pearson DL, Vogler AP (2001) Tiger beetles: the evolution, ecology, and diversity of the cicindelids. Comstock Publishing Associates, Ithaca, NY

    Google Scholar 

  • Pfennig KS (2007) Facultative mate choice drives adaptive hybridization. Science 318:965–967

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • R Development Core Team (2016) R: a language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria

    Google Scholar 

  • Richardson RK (2013) Ecomorphology and Mating Behavior of Two Species of Night-stalking Tiger Beetles, Omus audouini and O. dejeanii. PhD Thesis, Portland State University

  • Rodríguez SRL (2000) Spermatophore transfer and ejection in the beetle Pseudoxychila tarsalis (Coleoptera: Cicindelidae). J Kans Entomol Soc 72:1–9

    Google Scholar 

  • Rodríguez SRL (1998) Mating behavior of two Pseudoxychila beetles (Coleoptera: Cicindelidae). Can Entomol 130:775–750

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rohlf FJ (2012) tpsUtil, version 1.49. Department of Ecology and Evolution, State University of New York at Stony Brook

  • Rohlf FJ (1999) Shape statistics: Procrustes superimpositions and tangent spaces. J Classif 16:197–223

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schincariol LA, Freitag R (1986) Copulatory locus, structure, and function of the flagellum of Cicindela tranquebarica Herbst (Coleoptera, Cicindelidae). Int J Invertebr Reprod Dev 9:333–338

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schindelin J, Arganda-Carreras I, Frise E (2012) Fiji: an open-source platform for biological-image analysis. Nat Methods 9:676–682

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Schultz TD (1986) Role of structural colors in predator avoidance by tiger beetles of the genus Cincindela (Coleoptera: Cincindelidae). Bull Entomol Soc Am 32:142–146

    Google Scholar 

  • Veen T, Borge T, Griffith SC, Saetre GP, Bures S, Gustafsson L, Sheldon BC (2001) Hybridization and adaptive mate choice in flycatchers. Nature 411:45–50

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the undergraduates involved in specimen collection for this project as well as the volunteers and staff at the Southwestern Research Station.

Funding

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program under grant no. 1452598.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, 27109, USA

    Te K. Jones & William E. Conner

Authors
  1. Te K. Jones
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. William E. Conner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Te K. Jones.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Electronic supplementary material

ESM 1

(DOCX 183 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Jones, T.K., Conner, W.E. Pre-Mating Reproductive Isolation in Tiger Beetles (Carabidae: Cicindelinae): an Examination of the Role of Visual and Morphological Feedback. J Insect Behav 31, 672–688 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10905-018-9704-y

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10905-018-9704-y

Keywords

Search

Navigation