Apr 10 2025

LIN Seminar: “Auditory Perception of Host Cricket Calling Songs in the Acoustic Parasitoid Fly Ormia ochracea” by Norman Lee (St. Olaf College)

April 10, 2025

4:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Location

SELE 4289

Please join us April 1oth at 4pm in SELE 4289 for a LIN Seminar featuring "Auditory Perception of Host Cricket Calling Songs in the Acoustic Parasitoid Fly Ormia ochracea" by Dr. Norman Lee (St. Olaf College)

Lee Lab

Host: Angie Salles

Abstract: Reproduction in the acoustic parasitoid fly Ormia ochracea depends on the ability of gravid females to recognize and to localize the calling songs of suitable host cricket species. Specific features of cricket calling songs evaluated for song recognition, and how this information is integrated with information for sound location (direction hearing) is not well understood. Upon host localization, flies deposit larvae that develop within host crickets. This parasitism results in almost certain death in host crickets. In fact, this strong selective pressure has resulted in the rapid evolution of ‘silent’, and more recently “purring” and “rattling” song types produced by male field crickets among some cricket populations in Hawaii. Purring and rattling cricket songs are less intense and consist of frequency content that diverges from ancestral cricket songs. The extent to which Hawiian O. ochracea can perceive these novel song types is unknown. In this talk, I will discuss the sensory basis of directional hearing in O. ochracea, our progress on understanding how directional hearing and song recognition is integrated to result in appropriate phonotactic behavior, and the ability of O. ochracea to detect and to localize novel cricket songs emerging in Hawaii.

Contact

Emily Beaufort

Date posted

Aug 23, 2024

Date updated

Mar 3, 2025