Collaborative Research: RUI: Alternative strategies and evolutionary routes in the escalation of the bat-moth arms race: Ultrasonic stridulation in hawkmoths

蝙蝠-昆虫的相互作用可以追溯到数百万年前，回声定位蝙蝠和夜行昆虫之间共同的进化历史导致了一套独特的防御策略。虎蛾和虎甲虫通过向蝙蝠发射超声波响应信号，使军备竞赛升级。在虎蛾中，这些声音被证明可以警告蝙蝠的味觉不好，在声学模仿复合体中起作用，并干扰蝙蝠的生物声呐。这里提出的工作是建立在这个研究小组的基础上的？我们最近发现，飞蛾也会发出超声波来回应蝙蝠的攻击。与虎蛾不同，飞蛾没有化学防御，只有雄性飞蛾才会发出超声波，而且不同种类的飞蛾发声器官的结构差别很大。这提出了反蝙蝠超声波产生可能与多种其他行为策略有关的前景，包括跨家族声学模仿，物理防御和/或逃避飞行的广告，以及交配行为；而天蛾对蝙蝠攻击的超声波反应有多个独立的进化起源。研究小组将通过以下方法来验证这些假设：1)在实验室中高速拍摄蝙蝠与飞蛾相互作用的实验；2)在野外回放蝙蝠对飞蛾的回声定位攻击；3)构建基于分子（DNA）数据的进化树，用于检查声音产生的历史转变。这个合作研究项目的主要目标是培养一名博士后研究员、一名研究生和几名本科生。该提案经过精心设计，以交叉授粉研究实验室，并在pi和学生之间传递知识和技能。一个令人兴奋的教育组成部分是使用现场视频流的实地考察直接到高中教室。这项工作还将包括制作一段视频，突出利用蝙蝠回声定位的魅力和世界上一些动物的科学方法。最大和最引人注目的飞蛾。

Bat-insect interactions date back millions of years, and the shared evolutionary history between echolocating bats and nocturnal insects have resulted in a suite of unique defensive strategies. Tiger moths and tiger beetles have escalated the arms race by beaming ultrasonic response signals back at bats. In tiger moths, these sounds have been shown to warn bats of bad taste, function in acoustic mimicry complexes and jam bat biosonar. The work proposed here builds upon this research group?s recent discovery that hawkmoths also produce ultrasound in response to bat attack. Unlike tiger moths, hawkmoths are not chemically defended, only males produce ultrasound and the structure of the sound-producing organ varies greatly across the family. This raises the prospect that anti-bat ultrasound production may be linked to multiple additional behavioral strategies, including cross-family acoustic mimicry, advertisement of physical defenses and/or evasive flight, and mating behavior; and that hawkmoth ultrasonic reply to bat attack has multiple independent evolutionary origins. The research team will test these hypotheses by 1) high-speed filming experiments of bat-moth interactions in the lab, 2) playback of bat echolocation attacks to moths in the field and 3) construction of an evolutionary tree built on molecular (DNA) data that will be used to examine the historical transitions of sound production. A primary goal of this collaborative research project is the training of a postdoctoral researcher, a graduate student and several undergraduate students. This proposal has been carefully designed to cross-pollinate research labs and transfer knowledge and skills between PIs and students. An exciting educational component is the use of live video streaming of field expeditions directly to high school classrooms. This work will also involve the production of a video highlighting the scientific method exploiting the charisma of echolocating bats and some of the world?s largest and most striking moths.