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Male moths optimally balance take-off thoracic temperature and warm-up duration
to reach a pheromone source quickly
#MMPMID25386029
Crespo JG
; Vickers NJ
; Goller F
Anim Behav
2014[Dec]; 98
(?): 79-85
PMID25386029
show ga
Animal activities, such as foraging and reproduction, are constrained by
decisions about how to allocate energy and time efficiently. Overall, male moths
invest less in reproduction than females, but they are thought to engage in a
scramble competition for access to females that advertise readiness to mate by
releasing sexual pheromones. However, before male moths can follow the pheromone,
they often need to heat their flight muscles by shivering to produce sufficient
power for sustained flight. Here, we show that Helicoverpa zea males that sense
the female pheromone at high ambient temperatures take off with higher thoracic
temperature, shiver for less time and warm up faster than males tested at lower
ambient temperatures. These higher take-off temperatures translate into higher
airspeeds, underscoring the importance of thoracic temperature for flight
performance. Furthermore, shorter combined duration for warm-up and
pheromone-mediated optomotor anemotaxis is consistent with the idea that males
engage in scramble competition for access to females in nature. Our results
strongly suggest that male moths minimize the time between perceiving the
female's pheromone signal and arriving at the source by optimizing
thermoregulatory behaviour and temperature-dependent flight performance in
accordance with ambient temperature conditions. Our finding that moths engage in
a trade-off between rapid flight initiation and suboptimal flight performance
suggests a sensorimotor control mechanism that involves a complex interaction
with the thermal environment.