Antennal grooming facilitates courtship performance in a group-living insect, the German cockroach Blattella germanica.

ABSTRACT: The antennae of adult male German cockroaches detect a contact sex pheromone embedded in the female's cuticular lipids. The female pheromone stimulates courtship behavior in males, notably a wing-raising (WR) display. Within aggregations, however, cuticular lipids are disseminated by contact among group members, including nymphs and adults of both sexes, and "contamination" of cockroaches with the cuticular lipids of another stage or sex may interfere with sex discrimination and disrupt courtship. We used behavioral observations, bioassays and chemical analysis to determine how males maintain their sensitivity to sex pheromone in aggregations. Males contaminated with female pheromone displayed lower courtship, because residual female pheromone on their antennae adapted their peripheral sen

SUBMITTER: Wada-Katsumata A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6393502 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature