Gigi Noffsinger, “A Self-Boosting Signal Type in an Insect?”
Mentor: Rafael Rodriguez Sevilla, Biological Sciences
Poster #113

Sexual mimicry, whereby individuals of one sex mimic the behaviors, signals, or morphology of the other sex, is widespread in animals. We were interested in the function of a recently reported form of sexual mimicry in Enchenopa treehoppers. These treehoppers communicate with plant-borne vibrational signals. In pair formation, males produce advertisement signals and females respond with their own, establishing a duet that continues until the male finds the female. In addition to their advertisement signals, males often also produce another signal type, which mimics female duetting signals.  We asked about the function of these female-mimic signals by testing the following hypotheses: that they function to inhibit competing males; to increase the likelihood of female response; or to give the males producing them a “motivational self-boost”. We found that female-mimic signals did not inhibit other males from signaling, nor did they increase the likelihood of female response. However, males that produced a female mimic signal subsequently showed higher signaling effort than those that didn’t, in spite of being in lower body condition. These results give tentative support to the “self-boost” hypothesis and suggest a novel function for sexual mimicry. Sexual mimicry is usually thought to function to affect the behavior of receivers. Here we show low body condition males producing a female mimic can provide positive motivational feedback to themselves as a self-boost. However, it may sometimes function to affect the behavior of signalers.