Publications by authors named "Justin P Bredlau"
Traditional breeding techniques, applied incrementally over thousands of years, have yielded huge benefits in the characteristics of agricultural animals. This is a result of significant, measurable changes to the genomes of those animal species and breeds. Genome editing techniques may now be applied to achieve targeted DNA sequence alterations, with the potential to affect traits of interest to production of agricultural animals in just one generation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAcoustic signals play an important role in premating isolation based on sexual selection within many taxa. Many male parasitic wasps produce characteristic courtship songs used by females in mate selection. In Cotesia (Hymenoptera: Braconidae: Microgastrinae), courtship songs are generated by wing fanning with repetitive pulses in stereotypical patterns.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- Male parasitic wasps like Cotesia congregata use a courtship song made up of distinct components: a long "buzz" followed by pulsating "boings."
- High-speed videography and audio recordings were utilized to analyze how these sounds are produced, revealing that the boings have higher amplitude and lower frequency due to greater wing displacement, and sound is not generated by wing contact.
- The study concludes that the unique sound production mechanism involves the acceleration of wing tips during the wing's downstroke, and the findings suggest that small insects are well-suited for generating sounds due to their high wing flap rates.