Search results for "PLAY"

World-wide variation in Drosophila melanogaster sex pheromone: behavioural effects, genetic bases and potential evolutionary consequences

1996

0016-6707 (Print) Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't; In Drosophila melanogaster, male wing vibration, a key element of courtship behaviour, is most efficiently induced by a female-specific contact pheromone cis, cis 7,11 heptacosadiene (7,11 HD), which is the main mature female cuticular hydrocarbon in the CS laboratory strain. A study of 63 strains from around the world revealed that flies from Sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean are unique in showing low levels 7,11 HD and high levels of the position isomer 5,9 HD. This difference maps to chromosome III, perhaps indicating a simple genetic control of the 7,11 HD:5,9 HD ratio. Females from strains with high levels of 7,11 H…

Quantitative genetics of sexual display, ejaculate quality and size in a lekking species.

2013

9 pages; International audience; The investment into extravagant sexual display and competitive sperm are two essential components of pre- and post-copulatory sexual selection. Even though the selective forces acting on sexual display and sperm characteristics have been extensively studied in recent years, the genetic architecture underlying the expression of these traits has been rarely explored. Here, we estimated the genetic variances and covariances of traits linked with ejaculate size and quality, and sexual display in the houbara bustard (Chlamydotis undulata undulata, Jacquin 1784). Using a very large pedigree-based data set, we show that sexual signalling and ejaculate size (but not…

Can video playback provide social information for foraging blue tits?

2017

Video playback is becoming a common method for manipulating social stimuli in experiments. Parid tits are one of the most commonly studied groups of wild birds. However, it is not yet clear if tits respond to video playback or how their behavioural responses should be measured. Behaviours may also differ depending on what they observe demonstrators encountering. Here we present blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) videos of demonstrators discovering palatable or aversive prey (injected with bittertasting Bitrex) from coloured feeding cups. First we quantify variation in demonstrators’ responses to the prey items: aversive prey provoked high rates of beak wiping and head shaking. We then show tha…

Quantitative Genetics of the Aging of Reproductive Traits in the Houbara Bustard

2015

International audience; Do all traits within an organism age for the same reason? Evolutionary theories of aging share a common assumption: the strength of natural selection declines with age. A corollary is that additive genetic variance should increase with age. However, not all senescent traits display such increases suggesting that other mechanisms may be at play. Using longitudinal data collected from more than 5400 houbara bustards (Chlamydotis undulata) with an exhaustive recorded pedigree, we investigated the genetics of aging in one female reproductive trait (egg production) and three male reproductive traits (courtship display rate, ejaculate size and sperm viability), that displa…

Estimating the abundance of burrow-nesting species through the statistical analysis of combined playback and visual surveys

2016

A harvestman with elaborate palpal pliers, Thunbergia gretae n. gen. n. sp. from China (Opiliones: Sclerosomatidae: Gagrellinae)

2020

Abstract Based on the unusual characteristics of the male pedipalp and male genital morphology, a new genus and new species of Gagrellinae harvestmen, Thunbergia gretae n. gen. n. sp. (male and female) from Shaanxi Province, China, is proposed. The tibia and tarsus of the pedipalp form elaborate palpal claws, resembling gaspipe pliers, probably used to grasp the legs or the pedipalps of the female during courtship. There is no comparable modification of the pedipalp in the female. The penis lacks wing or sac-like (saccate) elements normally present in Gagrellinae, and the penis base is markedly inflated to form a bulb-like structure harbouring the penis muscle. Two or three opisthosomal ter…

Lateralization of complex behaviours in wild greater flamingos.

2018

8 pages; International audience; Lateralization refers to the preferential use of one side of the body to perform certain tasks, often as a consequence of the specialization of cerebral hemispheres. Individuals may benefit from lateralization if it allows them to perform complex tasks simultaneously. Studies on laterality further suggest that sex and age can influence the extent of lateralization. However, most studies on lateralization have been performed on captive individuals, exposed to simplified environments and expressing limited behavioural repertoire. Here, we evaluated behavioural lateralization in the greater flamingo, Phoenicopterus roseus, through observations of wild individua…

Is mate choice in Drosophila males guided by olfactory or gustatory pheromones ?

2010

International audience; Drosophila melanogaster flies use both olfactory and taste systems to detect sex pheromones and select the most suitable mate for reproduction. In nature, flies often face multiple potential partners and should have an acute sensory ability to discriminate between different pheromonal bouquets. We investigated both the pheromones and the chemosensory neurons influencing Drosophila mate choice. We measured various courtship traits in single tester males simultaneously presented with two target male and/or female flies carrying different pheromonal bouquets (pairs of control flies of the same or different sex, same-sex target pairs of pheromonal variant strains). The c…

Adaptive Control of Soft Robots Based on an Enhanced 3D Augmented Rigid Robot Matching

2021

Despite having proven successful in generating precise motions under dynamic conditions in highly deformable soft-bodied robots, model based techniques are also prone to robustness issues connected to the intrinsic uncertain nature of the dynamics of these systems. This letter aims at tackling this challenge, by extending the augmented rigid robot formulation to a stable representation of three dimensional motions of soft robots, under Piecewise Constant Curvature hypothesis. In turn, the equivalence between soft-bodied and rigid robots permits to derive effective adaptive controllers for soft-bodied robots, achieving perfect posture regulation under considerable errors in the knowledge of …

Three-Dimensional Integral-Imaging Display From Calibrated and Depth-Hole Filtered Kinect Information

2016

We exploit the Kinect capacity of picking up a dense depth map, to display static three-dimensional (3D) images with full parallax. This is done by using the IR and RGB camera of the Kinect. From the depth map and RGB information, we are able to obtain an integral image after projecting the information through a virtual pinhole array. The integral image is displayed on our integral-imaging monitor, which provides the observer with horizontal and vertical perspectives of big 3D scenes. But, due to the Kinect depth-acquisition procedure, many depthless regions appear in the captured depth map. These holes spread to the generated integral image, reducing its quality. To solve this drawback we …