| Title: | Eavesdropping on cooperative communication within an ant-butterfly mutualism |
| Author(s): | Elgar MA; Nash DR; Pierce NE; |
| Address: | "School of BioSciences, University of Melbourne, Victoria, 3010, Australia. m.elgar@unimelb.edu.au. Centre for Social Evolution, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, 2100, Copenhagen, Denmark. Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA" |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s00114-016-1409-5 |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 1432-1904 (Electronic) 0028-1042 (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "Signalling is necessary for the maintenance of interspecific mutualisms but is vulnerable to exploitation by eavesdropping. While eavesdropping of intraspecific signals has been studied extensively, such exploitation of interspecific signals has not been widely documented. The juvenile stages of the Australian lycaenid butterfly, Jalmenus evagoras, form an obligate association with several species of attendant ants, including Iridomyrmex mayri. Ants protect the caterpillars and pupae, and in return are rewarded with nutritious secretions. Female and male adult butterflies use ants as signals for oviposition and mate searching, respectively. Our experiments reveal that two natural enemies of J. evagoras, araneid spiders and braconid parasitoid wasps, exploit ant signals as cues for increasing their foraging and oviposition success, respectively. Intriguingly, selection through eavesdropping is unlikely to modify the ant signal" |
| Keywords: | "*Animal Communication Animals Ants/*physiology Butterflies/*physiology Female Male Oviposition/physiology Predatory Behavior/physiology Sexual Behavior, Animal/physiology Spiders/physiology *Symbiosis Wasps/physiology Araneidae Chemical signals Exploitati;" |
| Notes: | "MedlineElgar, Mark A Nash, David R Pierce, Naomi E eng Germany 2016/09/30 Naturwissenschaften. 2016 Oct; 103(9-10):84. doi: 10.1007/s00114-016-1409-5. Epub 2016 Sep 27" |
