No Evidence for Mate Choice Copying in Enchenopa binotata Treehoppers

Mentor 1

Lauren Cirino

Start Date

10-5-2022 10:00 AM

Description

Mate choice copying, a type of social learning, occurs when the mate choice decision of an individual female influences the preferences of observing females in a population. While evidence of mate choice copying has been found in a wide variety of animal taxa, research in insects has been limited and results are controversial. Our aim is to test the mate choice copying hypothesis and contribute to resolving conflict in the literature. We used a member of the Enchenopa binotata species complex of treehoppers (Hemiptera: Membracidae). These insects use plant-borne vibrations to find and choose mates. These vibrations are cast as public information during mate pairing, allowing any individuals in near proximity to monitor other individuals' interactions. Males produce advertisement signals and females attracted by a male respond with their own signals, establishing a duet that helps males find them. Females thus express their mate preferences by selective duetting with males. We tested the mate copying hypothesis by randomly assigning individual females to treatments consisting of either attractive or unattractive male signals, followed by either long, short, or no "demonstrator" female duetting responses. We described the individual test females' mate preferences before and after the treatments. If mate choice copying were to be present in this species, there should be a change in the post-treatment preference function. Alternatively, no change between pre- and post- treatment preferences would indicate that females do not exhibit mate choice copying. We found no changes in the peak preferences (preferred signal values) or selectivity of females- rejecting the mate choice copying hypothesis. Our findings are consistent with the results found in a recent study on Drosophila melanogaster, which challenged previous results supporting mate choice copying in the same species.

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May 10th, 10:00 AM

No Evidence for Mate Choice Copying in Enchenopa binotata Treehoppers

Mate choice copying, a type of social learning, occurs when the mate choice decision of an individual female influences the preferences of observing females in a population. While evidence of mate choice copying has been found in a wide variety of animal taxa, research in insects has been limited and results are controversial. Our aim is to test the mate choice copying hypothesis and contribute to resolving conflict in the literature. We used a member of the Enchenopa binotata species complex of treehoppers (Hemiptera: Membracidae). These insects use plant-borne vibrations to find and choose mates. These vibrations are cast as public information during mate pairing, allowing any individuals in near proximity to monitor other individuals' interactions. Males produce advertisement signals and females attracted by a male respond with their own signals, establishing a duet that helps males find them. Females thus express their mate preferences by selective duetting with males. We tested the mate copying hypothesis by randomly assigning individual females to treatments consisting of either attractive or unattractive male signals, followed by either long, short, or no "demonstrator" female duetting responses. We described the individual test females' mate preferences before and after the treatments. If mate choice copying were to be present in this species, there should be a change in the post-treatment preference function. Alternatively, no change between pre- and post- treatment preferences would indicate that females do not exhibit mate choice copying. We found no changes in the peak preferences (preferred signal values) or selectivity of females- rejecting the mate choice copying hypothesis. Our findings are consistent with the results found in a recent study on Drosophila melanogaster, which challenged previous results supporting mate choice copying in the same species.