TY - JOUR
T1 - Fireflies Thwart Bat Attack with Multisensory Warnings
AU - Leavell, Brian C.
AU - Rubin, Juliette J.
AU - McClure, Christopher J.W.
AU - Miner, Krystie A.
AU - Branham, Marc A.
AU - Barber, Jesse R.
PY - 2018/8/22
Y1 - 2018/8/22
N2 - Many defended animals prevent attacks by displaying warning signals that are highly conspicuous to their predators. We hypothesized that bioluminescing fireflies, widely known for their vibrant courtship signals, also advertise their noxiousness to echolocating bats. To test this postulate, we pit naïve big brown bats( Eptesicus fuscus ) against chemically defended fireflies ( Photinus pyralis) to examine whether and how these beetles transmit salient warnings to bats. We demonstrate that these nocturnal predators learn to avoid noxious fireflies using either vision or echolocation and that bats learn faster when integrating information from both sensory streams—providing fundamental evidence that multisensory integration increases the efficacy of warning signals in a natural predator-prey system. Our findings add support for a warning signal origin of firefly bioluminescence and suggest that bat predation may have driven evolution of firefly bioluminescence.
AB - Many defended animals prevent attacks by displaying warning signals that are highly conspicuous to their predators. We hypothesized that bioluminescing fireflies, widely known for their vibrant courtship signals, also advertise their noxiousness to echolocating bats. To test this postulate, we pit naïve big brown bats( Eptesicus fuscus ) against chemically defended fireflies ( Photinus pyralis) to examine whether and how these beetles transmit salient warnings to bats. We demonstrate that these nocturnal predators learn to avoid noxious fireflies using either vision or echolocation and that bats learn faster when integrating information from both sensory streams—providing fundamental evidence that multisensory integration increases the efficacy of warning signals in a natural predator-prey system. Our findings add support for a warning signal origin of firefly bioluminescence and suggest that bat predation may have driven evolution of firefly bioluminescence.
UR - https://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/bio_facpubs/561
UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aat6601
U2 - 10.1126/sciadv.aat6601
DO - 10.1126/sciadv.aat6601
M3 - Article
C2 - 30140743
JO - History Faculty Publications and Presentations
JF - History Faculty Publications and Presentations
ER -