Intraspecific communication

Attractive Compounds. While the defence chemistry of ladybird beetles has been extensively investigated, little is known about intraspecific communication. The role of chemical and behavioural cues has been described in mate recognition in Adalia bipunctata. Cuticular hydrocarbons, especially 7- and 9-methyltri-cosane seem to play an important role [301]. In Coccinella septempunctata, 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine 158 (see Scheme 17) accounting for the dis-... 

Attractive Compounds. Despite the fact that defence chemistry and insect-plant interactions have been extensively investigated in many leaf beetle species, not too much is known about the chemical background of intraspecific communication. 

Rats learn from group members about new food sources, and clans may develop food traditions. How does one rat transmit to another this information about food. This type of intraspecific communication employs both body and foreign odors. Bennet Galef and coworkers (1985) showed that observer rats who encounter demonstrator rats with food odor on their heads will prefer that food over another when given a choice later. It is important that the food odor is on the head portion of a live rat if it is applied to the rear end of a rat or to the head of a dead rat, it has no effect (Galef and Stein, 1985). 

Haynes, K. F and Yeargan, K.V. (1999). Exploitation of intraspecific communication systems illicit signalers and receivers. Annals of the Entomological Society of America 92 960-970. 

Several insects collect floral oils (scent components) as rewards for pollination and utilize them for their intraspecific communications. 

There are many other scolytid species that utilize these and similar compounds to effect intraspecific communication. Francke et al. (18) have discovered several spiroketals as active components of scolytid pheromones. Additionally, several parasites and predators utilize the pheromones produced by their scolytid prey as kairomones. For example, the predatory beetle, Temnochlla chlorodla, responds specifically to exo-brevicomin produced by female D. brevlcomls (19). This same phenomenon has been demonstrated recently in Lepidoptera the egg parasite Trlchogramma sp. uses the Hellothls zea (Boddie) sex pheromone to locate the H. zea eggs (20). 

The most well-known functions of secondary metabolites among arthropods include the use of pheromones for intraspecific communication, the employment of antipredatorial defensive agents, and the offensive use of paralytic and/or toxic agents, such as in the form of venoms, for the acquisition of prey. In recent years, considerable insight has been gained in all three categories, as well as in the discovery of heretofore unknown interactions (see Section 2.04.4.1). Fossil evidence of chemical defense in the insects reaches as far back as the Early Cretaceous period. The chemical defense of insects has been reviewed as... 

Most of what is known about crustacean chemoreception is in the context of food detection and ingestion only very little is known in other behavioral contexts, such as predator avoidance, orientation in the habitat, interactions with symbiotic partners, or intraspecific communication by pheromones. From recent behavioral and neuroanatomical studies, two important concepts about pheromone reception in crustaceans have emerged ... 

The study of animal communication has traditionally focused on analyses of conspicuous displays, ritualized (Blest, 1961), or formalized (Smith, 1977) over evolutionary time for the function of intraspecific communication (see McKay, 1972, for discussion of problems of definition). However, particularly among vertebrates, communication need not involve such specialized signals. 

A well-developed olfactory system is of fundamental importance for most insect species. Odors from host plants or host animals mediate availability of food, oviposition sites, egg-laying and other functions. Pheromones fulfill a variety of important missions in intraspecific communication, such as mate-finding, aggregation and alarm. The same compounds may also exchange information between different species, acting as allomones or kairo-mones. 

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