title: Male wing fanning by the aphid parasitoid Aphidius ervi (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) produces a courtship song.
abstract: We, herein, report evidence that wing fanning by the aphid parasitoid Aphidius ervi Haliday (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) constitutes a courtship song. Complete removal of the forewings or only the distal half of them reduced male copulation success in comparison to intact males. Males that achieved copulation within the observation period produced wing fanning at a higher rate than males that did not copulate. Playback of wing fanning sound altered the behaviour of virgin females, increasing the time they devoted to grooming, as compared with subjects that were exposed to silence or white noise. Our findings contribute to the understanding of the acoustic dimension of the sensory modalities employed by this aphid parasitoid in sexual signalling.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Ciencias Ecológicas, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Chile, Casilla 653, Santiago, Chile. cavillagra@gmail.com
authors.forename: C A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Villagra
authors.forename: C F
authors.initials: CF
authors.lastname: Pinto
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Penna
authors.forename: H M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Niemeyer
mesh_terms: D000162:Acoustics; D000818:Animals; D001042:Aphids / Q000469:parasitology; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D012726:Sexual Behavior, Animal; D013016:Sound; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D014863:Wasps / Q000502:physiology*; D014921:Wings, Animal / Q000502:physiology*