Males of the cerambycid beetle Neoclytus acuminatus acuminatus (F.) assume a body posture, never displayed by females, that appears to be associated with release of an aggregation pheromone: they periodically stop walking and fully extend their front legs, elevating their head and thorax above the substrate. In this article, we demonstrate that this body posture, the “pushup stance,” coincides with release of pheromone and that it serves to elevate pheromone glands above the substrate. We also use a pheromone proxy system (sublimation of naphthalene) to demonstrate that the pushup stance increases rates of pheromone dissemination. The pushup stance provides a convenient indictor for studying the role of pheromones in reproductive behavior and facilitating collection of pheromone in the laboratory.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank J. B. Nardi and L. A. Miller for assistance with histological sectioning, S. J. Robinson for assisting with SEM, J. G. Millar and J. A. Moreira for providing pheromone standards, and C. Loudon for suggesting the naphthalene sublimation technique as a pheromone proxy system. This research was made possible in part through collaboration with Bugscope, The Imaging Technology Group, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/). We appreciate funding support from the Alphawood Foundation of Chicago, US Forest Service under agreement #03-JV-11231300-091, and the Exotic/Invasive Pests and Diseases Research Program, University of California, under USDA-CSREES Grant No. 2004-34439-14691.
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Lacey, E.S., Ray, A.M. & Hanks, L.M. Calling Behavior of the Cerambycid Beetle Neoclytus acuminatus acuminatus (F.). J Insect Behav 20, 117–128 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10905-006-9068-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10905-006-9068-6