Meeting Abstract
Mating displays contribute heavily to diversity, being implicated in speciation as well as providing stunning examples of phenotypic disparity. These displays are critical for reproduction, as improper mate choice can have costly repercussions, such as loss of direct benefits or mating opportunities, increased harassment, or even inviable offspring. Using the bioluminescent displays of Caribbean sea fireflies (Ostracoda), we investigate if ecological overlap drives the evolution of discrimination behaviors in receiving females of four species. Varying ecology, like symparty with heterospecifics, can influence both how strong selection should be on receivers to recognize mates, and on senders to develop informationally-rich signals on which to choose. We used artificial playback with experimentally altered bioluminescent displays to test how well females from sympatric and allopatric species discriminate their conspecific display, and if certain display characters like pulse duration or interpulse interval produced more accurate discrimination. Our preliminary analyses indicate that females are responsive to our artificial displays, altering their levels of activity. We observed females frequently switch from slow swimming to rapid diving or back-and-forth turns, which we interpret as evidence of mate-seeking behaviors. Ongoing work using automated tracking will allow us to pair specific behavioral changes to the timing of stimulus onset. These results will allow us to assess the importance of pre-copulatory behaviors during speciation in bioluminescent ostracods.
