Behavioral aspects in entomology

Eat, read and enjoy
http://www.ethology.ru/persons/?id=66

Thank you, by the way, I read quite a few articles there, but I didn't read this one, in general, ants are not very interesting to me in terms of ethology, but there the problem is raised somewhat more broadly, interesting comments about the ideas about mutualism of various "cleaners" and about the ineffectiveness of this mutualism, which is essentially parasitism on the part of "cleaners".
But this is all interesting, but a little different, that site mainly contains articles more sociobiological than classical ethology," everyday " insect ethology, without parralels to other types of communities.

And here, as I understand it, the behavior and intra/interspecific relationships of insects are of little interest to anyone, only taxonomy

And here... In the section "Equipment and materials" there is a topic "Publications of Forum participants". There, some of the people quite clearly reflected the range of their interests. As for me personally, I spent 15 years studying the acoustic behavior of insects - now, however, I have switched to ecology. Although I still ask questions, it happens that they are also relevant to behavior.

Yes, I looked, regarding your topic, let's say how I think-in grasshoppers, females look for males, while males make sound signals, what is contained in these signals? In theory, first of all, information about the "species", but does these signals contain, so to speak, different information about the male about what a good, strong and successful male he is? So that when a female hears several songs from males of her own species, she chooses exactly the one that sings about the highest achievements. Or does the female just crawl to where the yelling is louder, just to get closer?

That is, did you have such an experiment where a group of females were offered different males, and where the females crawled, to the nearest male, or to the largest, or what are their criteria for success of the male?

I was working with crickets, not grasshoppers. I didn't set up full-fledged choice experiments myself, I just looked at the settings on the "go-no go" principle with artificial signals. I know that if the female has already gone, then you can, for example, turn off the signal for parcels, leave a trill a la medvedka - it will still go. And especially "concerned" (for example, who have not heard a real signal) go to such a trill immediately. The accuracy of setting the number of pulses in the parcel is generally useless: they run both on 6-and 10-pulse parcels. With the pulse rate-more precisely configured. But they can't be" fine-tuned": these signal parameters depend on temperature, and body temperature depends on many factors (for example, on the intensity of muscle work), and the two individuals may not coincide.

In general, it's interesting, I didn't think about this before. I wonder how it actually happens, that is, if you take a section of the steppe where there are a lot of straight-winged birds, sometimes grasshoppers predominate, many different species, and they all sing. At the same time, I would like to observe how the females choose their chosen ones. But in natural conditions it is very difficult to do this, grasshoppers prefer a tall stand of grass, and there is nothing to see. At home, this will not work, first of all, I personally do not really perceive behavioral experiments "on the bare floor", in fact "in vitro". Here is a clearing of 20X20m in size with an imitation of a small herbage and with only the" necessary " species in reasonable quantities - this would be yes, but where to get it Here, again everything depends on resources.

In general, R. D. Zhantiev formulated the idea of the separation of "acoustic niches" by different types - that is, the signals differ so much that females who are narrowly tuned to "their" signal pattern are not distracted by outsiders.

The easiest way to work with these insects in an experiment is a "Y-shaped maze". That is, the letter Y with a length of about a meter is placed horizontally, a cricket shelter (boxes with a hole) is placed on its unpaired part, and a speaker is placed to both "horns". But there is a big problem: an echo that can ruin everything. We worked in a special room with noise-absorbing walls. Theoretically, if you hang the entire room (including the floor and ceiling) with some flannel or egg cartons, you will succeed.

I can't imagine how to work with grasshoppers in this situation. The cricket also needs to calm down first - but it knows how to use shelters (I let it sit in it in silence for 3 minutes). And grasshoppers-they will not hide, but jump. Although O. S. Korsunovskaya (MSU) somehow works with them. In general, blacksmiths are as interesting in this respect as they are inconvenient. Not enough jumpiness - so they have the peaks of the spectra shifted to ultrasound, i.e. an ordinary computer can neither reproduce them nor record them, special boards are needed. But in Phaneropterinae and Bradyporinae, males and females conduct dialogues - these two groups usually have chirping devices in females as well. In terms of acoustic parameters, locusts are more convenient - they are also very interesting, but they are more bouncy than grasshoppers.

Well, I'm not interested in simulating signals, but in real processes, that is, observing a group of males and females. At the same time, observe all the various behavioral moments between them, and grow them from larvae, at least the penultimate molt, so that you can notice the development of acoustic behavior from the very beginning. To do this, you still need an analog of natural habitats, but more visible. Although, I don't pretend to be scientifically accurate, so I'll try to limit myself to simpler conditions, in the form of an insectarium of a fairly large area.
Locusts are small in size, difficult to observe, and they are more timid, by the way.

On locusts - read the works of O. von Helversen-there the animals really communicate with each other. By the way, it is locust. In general , the simpler the model situation, the less extraneous "noise"that affects the results. The model should be made more complex gradually , as the difference between nature and experience increases.

About fillies

This technique, given by Vedenina, in my opinion, comes from Helversen (although the details may differ). In general, if you are a Muscovite, then you have someone to communicate with. In St. Petersburg-probably only with me-I can also teach you how to measure the frequency of wing flaps in a "flying" fixed insect, and quite accurately. Also, however, with E. E. Shchekanov from the IEF. Well, if you are from other cities - write, I will answer.

No, we have very few people to communicate with right in the city, and not all "meters" can be communicated in principle, amateurs are usually not liked
And I can measure the frequency of strokes with the camera, by calculating from the shutter speed values, so you can measure other parameters, but this one too.
Is there any other way?

Well, I used another one. He placed the insect between the laser pointer and the photoresistor and fed the signal into the sound card. In general, the amplitude modulation of the carrier sinusoid is several kilohertz.

Hmm, yes, this is a more accurate method, so you can find the frequency of swings by idea and by buzzing. You can do this with a photo approximately by setting the exposure bracketing and taking a series of pictures, where the transition from blurred wings to a clear image should be the frequency of flaps. The camera usually allows you to set a minimum of 1/1000, that is, up to 1000 strokes per second can be measured. But my bracketing is very inflexible, so you need to manually change the shutter speed.