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Courtship Songs of Green Lacewings Filmed in Slow Motion: How a Simple Vibrating Structure can Generate Complex Signals (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae: Chrysoperla)

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Abstract

All of the cryptic species in the Chrysoperla carnea-group of green lacewings produce substrate-borne duetting songs by vibrating the abdomen up and down. Here, we examine the motion of the abdomen during song production using a high-speed video camera. Through temporal (oscillogram) and frequency (sonogram) analysis, these motions are compared to the vibrational signals recorded from the substrate. In tests of three focal and seven non-focal species, we find that the movement of the abdomen follows a path that induces complex oscillations in lightweight substrates. Although the waveform of the signal in the substrate does not exactly mirror the waveform of abdominal motion, the frequencies of the two waveforms are nevertheless identical. In all species, the abdomen is driven by neuromuscular elements that simultaneously generate two or more signals (tones) of different frequency within the abdomen. Comparison in different species of how the abdomen moves when producing these distinct tones potentially allows us to detect homologous song elements across the carnea-group, thus clarifying some patterns of song evolution in this rapidly evolving clade.

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Acknowledgments

We are especially grateful to Drs. Peter Duelli (Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland), Atsushi Mochizuki (National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences, Tsukuba, Japan), and Kaushalya Amarasekare (Mid-Columbia Agricultural Research and Extension Center, Hood River, OR, U.S.A.) for collecting, maintaining, and shipping living lacewings from the Lesser Caucasus Mountains, the Alps of Switzerland, Greece, Japan, and western North America. The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, Unit 3043, 75 North Eagleville Road, Storrs, CT, 06269-3043, USA

    Charles S. Henry

  2. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, 165 Prospect St., New Haven, CT, 06511-8934, USA

    Marta Lucía Martínez Wells

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  1. Charles S. Henry
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  2. Marta Lucía Martínez Wells
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Correspondence to Charles S. Henry.

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Henry, C.S., Wells, M.L.M. Courtship Songs of Green Lacewings Filmed in Slow Motion: How a Simple Vibrating Structure can Generate Complex Signals (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae: Chrysoperla). J Insect Behav 28, 89–106 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10905-015-9484-6

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