Sexual Resonse of a Male Scarab Beetle to Larvae Suggests a Novel Evolutionary Origin for a Pheromone

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Abstract
The tremendous diversity of insect species is paralleled by diverse forms of communication between the sexes (Lewis 1984). A survey of insect fauna would soon reveal that every sensory modality is used in communication, from the obvious visual signals of brightly colored butterflies and acoustic signals of cicadas to the less obvious, but equally important, substrate-borne vibrational signals of leafhoppers and chemical signals used by many moths and beetles. The diversity of these signals has been shaped by evolutionary processes tied to sexual selection and speciation (Otte ' Endler 1989). Though the issues surrounding the role of sexual communication in speciation have not been resolved, studies of the evolution of communication have focused, in large part, on this diversification. An even more elusive evolutionary question concerns how sexual communication originates. The origin of functional communication is enigmatic because, by definition, it involves two parties, the signaler and the receiver. The physiological and behavioral requirements for signal production and signal reception are always different, yet both are necessary. Why would a firefly flash unless other fireflies could respond to that flash? Why would a male cricket sing if females did not have the potential to respond to that signal? How could a chemical signal originate, when the receiver often must have thousands of specialized receptors to respond?

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