Burying beetle bioacoustics: The role of sound in Nicrophorus intraspecific communication

Insect stridulation mediates contests, reproduction, and parent-offspring communication in many systems. Studies of stridulation in Coleoptera include descriptions of morphology of sound-producing structures, sound characteristics, and manipulations of sound production to discover its behavioral function, but few studies have investigated the role of sound in the life history of the Nicrophorus burying beetles. In this study, we comprehensively characterize the acoustic stridulation of eight North American Nicrophorus species, including characterization of the stridulatory structures, and apply a phylogenetic comparison across the genus. We also investigated the role of sound in during reproduction. Overall, induced Nicrophorus stridulations are biphastic and broadband with weak dominant frequency structure. Removing sound does not influence reproductive success or fecundity in N. marginatus. The evidence presented in these studies indicates that stridulations are likely playing more of a role in interspecific communication, such as an aposematic warning signal, or possibly as an intraspecific aggregation signal between parent and offspring.