Neuroethology of acoustic communication in field crickets - from signal generation to song recognition in an insect brain

Jul 17, 2020Progress in neurobiology

How field crickets produce and recognize sounds in their brain

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Abstract

Field crickets utilize acoustic communication, primarily through male calling songs, to attract females.

The review summarizes the neurobiological mechanisms involved in the acoustic communication of field crickets, focusing on motor control and auditory processing.
Research has revealed insights into the neuronal networks responsible for generating calling songs and recognizing their patterns.
Intraspecific communication in crickets has spurred ongoing studies in sensory ecology, bioacoustics, and the genetics of behavior.
Field crickets have served as a valuable model for understanding key concepts in behavioral neuroscience, including motor pattern generation and sensory detection.

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Field crickets are best known for the loud calling songs produced by males to attract conspecific females. This review aims to summarize the current knowledge of the neurobiological basis underlying the acoustic communication for mate finding in field crickets with emphasis on the recent research progress to understand the neuronal networks for motor pattern generation and auditory pattern recognition of the calling song in Gryllus bimaculatus. Strong scientific interest into the neural mechanisms underlying intraspecific communication has driven persistently advancing research efforts to study the male singing behaviour and female phonotaxis for mate finding in these insects. The growing neurobiological understanding also inspired many studies testing verifiable hypotheses in sensory ecology, bioacoustics and on the genetics and evolution of behaviour. Over last decades, acoustic communication in field crickets served as a very successful neuroethological model system. It has contributed significantly to the scientific process of establishing, reconsidering and refining fundamental concepts in behavioural neurosciences such as command neurons, central motor pattern generation, corollary discharge processing and pattern recognition by sensory feature detection, which are basic building blocks of our modern understanding on how nervous systems control and generate behaviour in all animals.

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Neuroethology of acoustic communication in field crickets - from signal generation to song recognition in an insect brain

Abstract

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