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PubMed2000

courtless, the Drosophila UBC7 homolog, is involved in male courtship behavior and spermatogenesis.

The courtless (col) mutation disrupts early steps of courtship behavior in Drosophila males, as well as the development of their sperm. Most of the homozygous col/col males (78%) do not court at all. Only 5% perform the entire ritual and copulate, yet these matings produce no progeny. The col gene maps to polytene chromosome band 47D. It encodes two proteins that differ in their carboxy termini and are the Drosophila homologs of the yeast ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme UBC7. The col mutation is caused by an insertion of a P element into the 3' UTR of the gene, which probably disrupts translational regulatory elements. As a consequence, the homozygous mutants exhibit a six- to sevenfold increase in the level of the COL protein. The col product is essential, and deletions that remove the col gene are lethal. During embryonic development col is expressed primarily in the CNS. Our results implicate the ubiquitin-mediated system in the development and function of the nervous system and in meiosis during spermatogenesis.

Alleles↗
PubMed1986

Interspecific genetic control of courtship song production and reception in Drosophila.

The genetic control of courtship song differences between Drosophila melanogaster and Drosophila simulans males was investigated by producing hybrids from reciprocal crosses. The song rhythm difference between the parental species appears to be due to sex-linked genes, whereas the basic interpulse-interval difference is autosomally inherited. Hybrid females show selective preferences for artificially generated songs carrying intermediate "hybrid" characteristics.

Animal Communication↗
PubMed2004

Do quantitative trait loci (QTL) for a courtship song difference between Drosophila simulans and D. sechellia coincide with candidate genes and intraspecific QTL?

The genetic architecture of traits influencing sexual isolation can give insight into the evolution of reproductive isolation and hence speciation. Here we report a quantitative trait loci (QTL) analysis of the difference in mean interpulse interval (IPI), an important component of the male courtship song, between Drosophila simulans and D. sechellia. Using a backcross analysis, we find six QTL that explain a total of 40.7% of the phenotypic variance. Three candidate genes are located in the intervals bounded by two of the QTL and there are no significant QTL on the X chromosome. The values of mean IPI for hybrid individuals imply the presence of dominant alleles or epistasis. Because unisexual hybrid sterility prevents an F(2) analysis, we cannot distinguish dominant from additive genetic effects at the scale of QTL. A comparison with a study of QTL for intraspecific variation in D. melanogaster shows that, for these strains, the QTL we have identified for interspecific variation cannot be those that contribute to intraspecific variation. We find that the QTL have bidirectional effects, which indicates that the genetic architecture is compatible with divergence due to genetic drift, although other possibilities are discussed.

Alleles↗
PubMed2001

Characterization of female preference functions for Drosophila montana courtship song and a test of the temperature coupling hypothesis.

Female mate preferences are a major cause of diversity and elaboration in male sexual traits. Here we characterize the shape of female preference functions for pulse length and carrier frequency of the courtship song of Drosophila montana by fitting both parametric and nonparametric functions to the incidence of female receptive gestures to synthetic song. Preference functions for both traits are strongly directional. That for pulse length is linear and favors short pulses, whereas that for carrier frequency is stabilizing in shape, but would exert directional preferences favoring males with high carrier frequency. The preference for carrier frequency has probably evolved under sexual selection, but reasons for the preference for short pulses are less apparent. We also examine the effect of ambient temperature on the carrier frequency of male song and on the preference function for carrier frequency. For many similar acoustic communication systems, temperature coupling, a compensatory effect of temperature on preference functions, is thought to maintain coordination between preferences and signals. However, although the carrier frequency of D. montana song is highly dependent on environmental temperature, there is no temperature coupling of the female preference function. We suggest that temperature coupling may often arise due to a common effect of temperature on song and preference, rather than be an advantageous characteristic whose function is to maintain coordination in temperature-affected communication systems.

Animals↗
PubMed2006

[Feeding habitat of red-crowned crane and white-napped crane during their courtship period in Zhalong wetland].

By the methods of fixed-spot observation, GPS positioning, plot sampling measurement and factor analysis, a comparative study was made on the feeding habitat of red-crowned and white-napped crane during their courtship period (from March to April) in Zhalong Nature Reserve in 2003 and 2004. The results showed that red-crowned crane preferred unique habitat for feed, mostly focused on water field (e. g., reed marsh). During its selection of microhabitat, food factor played a crucial role, followed by concealment factor, water factor, and identification factor. The feeding habitat of white-napped crane was of diversification, and dry field, e. g., Carex marsh, farmland and burned field, was the priority. White-napped crane had a strict requirement in selecting feeding microhabitat, with "valid food" factor as the most important ingredient, and disturbance and water factors as the subordinate one.

Animals↗
PubMed1996

Proctolinlike immunoreactivity and identified neurosecretory cells as putative substrates for modulation of courtship display behavior in the blue crab, Callinectes sapidus.

Pheromonally stimulated courtship display (CD) behavior in male blue crabs (Callinectes sapidus) is characterized by rhythmic waving of the fifth legs. The waving of the fifth legs is modulated by proctolin in freely moving crabs and in reduced preparations. To begin to identify an anatomical substrate for CD behavior we have localized putative proctolinergic cells and described the morphology of neurosecretory neurons known to oscillate during pheromonal stimulation of reduced preparations. Proctolin-induced CD occurs with developmental and seasonal dependence. Male crabs altered hormonally by eyestalk ligation spontaneously produce CD behavior. We have localized proctolinlike immunoreactivity (PIR) in the central nervous system (CNS) and compared this immunoreactivity across sexes, developmental stage, eyestalk ligation, and seasonal conditions to determine whether or not expression of PIR is correlated with CD behavior. PIR was found in most areas of the CNS. Clusters of PIR-positive cells were found in the sinus gland and eyestalk ganglia, olfactory neuropil with associated cell bodies, and in a large cell cluster in the subesophageal region of the ventral nerve cord. Three pairs of cell bodies in different cell body groups in the brains of adult crabs stained positively for PIR but did not stain in the youngest juvenile animals. Comparison of PIR distribution with toluidine blue studies of the ventral nerve cord indicated a high likelihood that cells in the PIR-positive cluster of the subesophageal ganglia were also members of the cluster of neurons identified as oscillatory neurosecretory neurons.

Animals↗
PubMed2006

Courtship dances in the flies of the genus Lispe (Diptera: Muscidae): from the fly's viewpoint.

Two predatory fly species, Lispe consanguinea Loew, 1858 and L. tentaculata DeGeer, 1776, inhabit the supralittoral zone at the shore of a fresh-water reservoir. Both species look alike and possess similar "badges," reflective concave silvery scales on the face. Flies occupy different lek habitats. Males of the first species patrol the bare wet sand on the beach just above the surf. Males of the second species reside on the more textured heaps of algae and stones. Courtship and aggressive behaviour of males was video-recorded and analysed frame by frame. Visual stimuli provided by the conspecific partner were computed in the body-fixed space of a fly observer. Males of L. consanguinea perform long pedestrian dances of pendulating circular arcs (frequency 2 s(-1), median radius 2.5 cm, linear velocity 0.130 m/s). Right and left side runs are equally probable. Circular runs are interrupted by standby intervals of average duration 0.35 s. The female views the male as a target covering 2 by 2 ommatidia, moving abruptly with the angular velocity over 200 degrees/s in a horizontal direction down the path of about 50 degrees till the next standpoint. Dancing is evenly distributed around the female. On the contrary, the male fixates the image of the female within the narrow front sector (median +/-10 degrees); the target in his view has 6-7 times less angular velocity and angular span of oscillations, and its image in profile overlays 6-8 by 2 ommatidia. If the female walks, the male combines tracking with voluntary circular dances. Rival males circle about one another at a distance shorter than 15 mm, but not in close contact. Males of L. tentaculata are capable of similar circular courting dances, but do so rarely. Usually they try to mount any partner immediately. In the latter species, male combat consists of fierce wrestling. Flies of both species often walk sideward and observe the partner not in front but at the side.

Aggression↗
PubMed1975

The effects of castration and androgen replacement on song, courtship, and aggression in zebra finches (Poephila guttata).

Castration of adult male zebra finches (Poephila guttata, Estrildidae) reduces their singing rate and the tempo of song, but castrates continue to sing song identical in form to preoperative song. Injection or implantation of testosterone propionate (TP) but not of vehicle alone reverses the changes produced by castration. Castration or partial castration also reduces the frequency of courtship, copulation, and aggression. Androgen (TP) replacement reverses these changes, but control injections do not. The persistence of song after castration contrasts with the abolition of song by castration in other birds, and this may be related to the natural history of zebra finches.

Aggression↗
PubMed1997

Courtship feeding in tree crickets increases insemination and female reproductive life span

Courtship feeding in the majority of insects may influence female reproductive patterns either directly, through effects of the gift material, or indirectly, through correlated effects of prolonged copulation and larger ejaculates. This distinction is important because the cause of changes in fecundity may influence patterns of the allocation of resources between the sexes, with implications for the intensity of sexual selection and magnitude of sexual conflict. I show that post-copulatory feeding on the secretions of a gland on the metanotum of male Oecanthus nigricornis. Walker correlates with oviposition and affects the number of sperm remaining within the spermatophore. Manipulations of gland feeding and insemination duration showed that changes in fecundity are due to the gift rather than the ejaculate. Metanotal gland feeding increased female fecundity by increasing reproductive life span without significantly increasing oviposition rate. These changes in reproduction were directly due to the gift itself. Although gland feeding was positively correlated with the duration of insemination and thus the number of sperm transferred from the spermatophore to the female, experimentally prolonging or reducing insemination had no significant effect on reproductive life span. Male phenotype was also associated with female fecundity but in this case the effect was caused by an increase in the oviposition rate of females that mated with relatively large males. Male size had no significant effect on female reproductive life span, suggesting that its effect is not simply due to a quantitative increase in gift size. Three other measures of male phenotype, fluctuating asymmetry, condition (i.e. size-standardized wet body mass) and age, had no significant effects on female reproduction.Copyright 1997 The Association for the Study of Animal BehaviourCopyright 1997The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1998

The period gene controls courtship song cycles in Drosophila melanogaster.

We developed a technique that assists in objective identification of pulse and sine components in the Drosophila melanogaster courtship song. The song was recorded digitally and subjected to wavelet analysis, which decomposed the signal into a series of bands of decreasing frequency in which acoustic power appeared as a function of time. This time-frequency analysis expresses characteristic 'fingerprints' of the pulses, which appear in all frequency bands, and characteristic 'fingerprints' of the sine song, which appear only in the band containing its frequency. Means of the interpulse intervals (IPIs) for each second of 10-min recordings of song in which pulse singing occurred constituted an irregularly sampled time series, intractable to common spectral analysis techniques. Therefore, we took the discrete Fourier transform of this series, which retained all the spectral information in the Fourier coefficients, and used the inverse Fourier transform of these coefficients to yield a new series that was regularly spaced, with an estimate of IPI for each second in the interval. We observed an IPI period of 67.9 s in wild type, 31.1 s in per0, 45.9 s in pers, and 72.0 s in perL. Copyright 1998 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1999

Courtship song rhythms in Drosophila yakuba.

We studied the courtship songs of males from several strains of Drosophila yakuba. There was clear evidence for two types of pulse songs, generated by the male's wing vibration, which we called 'thud' song and 'clack' song. Clack song was generated by both wings, at distances further from the female than the thud component, which was produced by one-wing displays. The carrier frequency of clack song was considerably higher than that of thud, whereas the interpulse intervals (IPI) of thud song, which usually predominated, were shorter. Furthermore, thud song revealed a cycling of IPIs with a period of about 70 s, significantly longer than that of D. melanogaster or D. simulans. Copyright 1999 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1993

Hormonal induction of male courtship behavior in the Japanese newt, Cynops pyrrhogaster.

In the breeding season, the sexually mature male newt, Cynops pyrrhogaster, vibrates the tail in front of the female at an early stage of courtship. Effects of prolactin (PRL), gonadotropin (GTH), and sex steroids on this behavior were investigated in the male paired with the female receiving PRL and GTH. The behavior was elicited in the sexually inert male by injections of PRL of bovine, ovine, or bullfrog origin and human chorionic gonadotropin or bullfrog LH and FSH in combination. The effect of PRL or GTH alone was less marked than that of PRL plus GTH, especially in terms of frequency of the behavior. In the hypophysectomized male, combination of PRL and GTH significantly increased both the incidence and frequency of the behavior. However, PRL alone was not effective, and the effect of GTH alone was less pronounced than that in the intact animal receiving GTH injections. The effect of GTH was nullified by castration. In the PRL-treated castrated animal, testosterone or dihydrotestosterone, but not estradiol, was effective in inducing the behavior.

Animals↗
PubMed1997

Central administration of chicken gonadotropin-releasing hormone-II enhances courtship behavior in a female sparrow.

Like most vertebrates, birds have two forms of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH). Chicken GnRH-I (cGnRH-I) is released at the median eminence to elicit gonadotropin release; chicken GnRH-II (cGnRH-II) is thought to be non-hypophysiotropic and its function is unclear. Both forms are hypothesized to act as neurotransmitters in the control of reproductive behavior. In the present study, we implanted chronic cannulae aimed at the third ventricle in female white-crowned sparrows (Zonotrichia leucophrys gambelii) to test the effects of both forms of GnRH on copulation solicitation, a female courtship behavior. This behavior can be elicited in captive, estrogen-primed females by playing a recording of male song. We quantified the behavioral response to recorded song 30, 60, and 90 min after intracerebroventricular infusion of cGnRH-I, -II, or saline. cGnRH-II, but not cGnRH-I, increased solicitation behavior compared with saline 30 min after infusion. Under control conditions, responses to the playback diminish from the 30-min to the 90-min time point. Responses after cGnRH-II infusion followed a similar pattern, whereas after cGnRH-I, there was no significant response decrement. cGnRH-I appears to maintain the level of solicitation seen at 30 min after infusion. Our results suggest a behavioral role for cGnRH-II that may be independent of cGnRH-I.

Animals↗
PubMed2000

Progesterone inhibits female courtship behavior in domestic canaries (Serinus canaria).

We studied copulation solicitation display (CSD) responses to playback in photostimulated female canaries given systemic injections of progesterone. Eight females received injections of 0.1 mg of progesterone dissolved in olive oil during their first breeding cycle and were untreated during their second breeding cycle; eight females received only the oil vehicle during their first breeding cycle and received no treatment during their second breeding cycle. The injections were performed every second day during 15 days, after the onset of nest building. Progesterone treatment resulted in a significant increase of plasma progesterone which in turn provoked an inhibition of females' CSDs and decreased the size of the clutch. During the first breeding cycle, progesterone-treated females had lower CSDs and egg-laying scores than did control females. During the second breeding cycle, when females received no treatment, no differences emerged between the two groups. The suppressive effect of progesterone on female sexual responses was observed as soon as 48 h after the beginning of the treatment. We propose that progesterone plays a key role in mediating the transition from active female courtship behavior to sexual refractoriness in this species. Suppressive effects of progesterone on female sexual behavior have been previously described in lizards as well as in rodents. Our data are consistent with the hypothesis of Godwin et al. (J. Godwin, V. Hartman, M. Grammer, and D. Crews, Horm. Behav. 30, 138-144, 1996) which proposed that the decrease in sexual behavior following plasma progesterone increase represents an evolutionarily conserved mechanism in the regulation of female sexual behavior.

Animals↗
PubMed1977

A mutation which changes courtship song in Drosophila melanogaster.

A mutant Drosophila melanogaster with an aberrant courtship song has been isolated. The interval between pulses and the length of the pulses are increased. The pulses are polycyclic rather than monocyclic. Flight wingbeat and sine song frequency remain unchanged. The mutation is mapped and fate-mapped. The results from the latter investigation are inconclusive.

Animal Communication↗
PubMed1994

The inactive mutation leads to abnormal experience-dependent courtship modification in male Drosophila melanogaster.

Flies carrying the inactive mutation of Drosophila melanogaster have only 15% wild-type titers of the putative neurotransmitter octopamine. With a view to discovering whether the inactive mutation impairs learning, I describe the effect of the inactive mutation on experience-dependent courtship modification (EDCM). Wild-type males rapidly condition to immature males and modify their behaviour toward subsequent target flies. The weaker EDCM phenotype of inactive males is similar to that of dunce males. Using time-sampling, habituation is most rapid for wild-type males and slowest for dunce males, with inactive males showing an intermediate phenotype. These results support the notion that octopamine plays a significant role in the manifestation of Drosophila learning behavior.

Animals↗
PubMed2002

The effect of female wings on male courtship behavior in the cricket Gryllus bimaculatus.

Sexual dimorphism exists in the shape and the structure of the forewings of the cricket (Gryllus bimaculatus). However, the functional significance of the wings in the G. bimaculatus female has been unclear. In common blue butterflies (Polyommatus icarus), wings in females have been suggested as being important for attracting males. To test whether female crickets need wings for conspecific males to recognize them and initiate mating behavior, we removed all wings from females and observed the behavior of males towards them. Most males (87.5%) showed mating behavior towards the wingless females: they produced courtship song and transferred spermatophores to the wingless females. Similarly, 88.5% of the males showed mating behavior towards intact females. When males were placed with both a wingless female and an intact female, no significant difference was detected in male mate choice. The findings demonstrate that the wing of the G. bimaculatus female is not necessary for female recognition by conspecific males and the initiation of male mating behavior, and that it is not important in male mate choice.

Animals↗
PubMed2001

Courtship behavior of captive American kestrels (Falco sparverius) exposed to polychlorinated biphenyls.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) adversely affect reproduction in birds. Captive adult male and female American kestrels (Falco sparverius) were studied to investigate the potential behavioral and hormonal alterations during the courtship period resulting from clinical exposure to PCBs. American kestrels ingested 7 mg/kg/body weight/bird/day of a 1:1:1 mixture of Aroclors 1248, 1254, and 1260 through their diet of day-old cockerels. The dietary dosage of Aroclors resulted in environmentally relevant total PCB residues in the eggs, averaging 34.1 microg/g wet weight (geometric mean). There was no difference between treatment and control birds in the circulating levels of total androgens (p = 0.44) or in 17 beta-estradiol (p = 0.29), one week following pairing. Male kestrels exposed to dietary PCBs exhibited significantly more sexual behaviors (p = 0.034) and flight behaviors (p = 0.026) than the control males. Sexual behaviors of male kestrels included; nest-box inspections, solicitation of copulation, the offer of food to the female, and giving the female food. The flight behaviors of the male included; flying from one perch to another and aerial display. In addition, the frequency of male sexual behaviors were correlated (r = 0.605, p = 0.001) with total PCB residues in the eggs of their mates. A concurrent study found that these same PCB-exposed kestrels experienced a delay in clutch initiation as well as a greater number of completely infertile clutches.

Animals↗