Sexual selection has led to the evolution of extraordinary and elaborate male courtship behaviors across taxa, including mammals and birds, as well as some species of flies. Drosophila persimilis flies perform complex courtship behaviors found in most Drosophila species, which consist of visual, air-borne, gustatory and olfactory cues. In addition, Drosophila persimilis courting males also perform an elaborate postural display that is not found in most other Drosophila species. This postural display includes an upwards contortion of their abdomen, specialized movements of the head and forelegs, raising both wings into a “wing-posture” and, most remarkably, the males proffer the female a regurgitated droplet. Here, we use high-resolution imaging, laser vibrometry and air-borne acoustic recordings to analyse this postural display to ask which signals may promote copulation. Surprisingly, we find that no air-borne signals are generated during the display. We show, however, that the abdomen tremulates to generate substrate-borne vibratory signals, which correlate with the female’s immobility before she feeds onto the droplet and accepts copulation.

中文翻译：

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求偶果蝇的精细姿势显示产生基质振动信号

性选择导致了整个分类群中非凡而复杂的雄性求偶行为的进化，包括哺乳动物和鸟类，以及一些苍蝇。Drosophila persimilis 果蝇执行在大多数果蝇物种中发现的复杂求偶行为，其中包括视觉、空气传播、味觉和嗅觉线索。此外，向雄性果蝇求爱的果蝇也会进行复杂的姿势展示，这在大多数其他果蝇物种中是不存在的。这种姿势表现包括腹部向上扭曲，头部和前腿的特殊运动，将双翼抬起成“翅膀姿势”，最引人注目的是，雄性向雌性提供反流的水滴。在这里，我们使用高分辨率成像，激光振动测量和空中声学记录来分析这种姿势显示，以询问哪些信号可以促进交配。令人惊讶的是，我们发现在显示过程中没有产生空中信号。然而，我们表明腹部会颤抖以产生基底振动信号，这与雌性在喂食液滴并接受交配之前的不动有关。