These mating signals act at multiple sites in the mated female to activate post-mating responses required for successful reproduction [1], [2].
If mating preferences contribute to the evolution and maintenance of reproductive isolation among species, mating signals are expected to change rapidly during the speciation process.
Mating signals are diverse and often spectacular.
Taylor, R. C. & Ryan, M. J. Interactions of multisensory components perceptually rescue túngara frog mating signals.
The survival value of bioluminescence is indisputable for many organisms who use their flashes as species-recognition and mating signals.
A male spider bent on fulfilling its sexual destiny risks becoming the female's dinner unless he properly executes his mating signals and remains always ready to beat a hasty retreat.
And, remarkably, changing the order and timing of relatively unattractive display components (one acoustic, one visual) can perceptually rescue túngara frog (Physalaemus pustulosus) mating signals, creating a newly attractive display if played in the right combination20.
Birds often communicate with what some consider to be language (alarm calls, mating signals, etc)., so I think there is no reason to reject the notion dinosaurs communicated within their groups in a manner similar to modern birds.
A genetic basis for early song discrimination in songbirds has wide-ranging consequences for how species-specific mating signals and preferences can be established and maintained, even when sister species live side-by-side.
So scientists have been puzzled that males of many species, including fish and frogs, send mating signals that a female has trouble perceiving.
To combat the pest, entomologist Valerio Mazzoni and colleagues at the Edmund Mach Foundation, an agricultural institute in Trentino, Italy, decided to use the leafhopper's mating signals against them.
