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Phonotaxis in Male Field Crickets: The Role of Flight Experience, Serotonin and Octopamine Neurotransmission

Maxim Mezheritskiy,D. Vorontsov,V. Dyakonova

Published 2025 in Insects

ABSTRACT

Simple Summary Field crickets are not eusocial insects like ants or bees, but they do exhibit advanced social behavior. They use sound to find and communicate with each other. The males of Gryllus bimaculatus crickets produce a calling signal, to which the females respond with phonotaxis, moving towards the source of the sound. It is only natural that phonotaxis was mainly studied in female crickets. However, it is known that males also have a phonotactic response to a calling signal. This allows the male to silently move toward another singing male and to intercept the approaching females. It was widely believed that the male phonotaxis is significantly weaker than the female phonotaxis. However, the data obtained in our experiments disprove this. In our experiments, the phonotaxis of males and females did not differ in any of the measured parameters. Additionally, the mechanisms of phonotaxis modulation were similar in both sexes. Previous flight experience significantly increased phonotaxis in both males and females. Furthermore, flight-induced activation of phonotaxis appeared to be similarly associated with serotonergic neurotransmission in both sexes. Interestingly, studies on locusts and fruit flies have shown that social attraction, or attraction to conspecifics, is also based on serotonergic and, more generally, monoaminergic mechanisms. Considering phonotaxis as a kind of social attraction reveals parallels and suggests evolutionary conservatism in the serotonergic mechanisms of attraction and repulsion in insects.

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