New research from North Carolina State University reveals the behavioral mechanism that underlies
Male German cockroaches (Blattella germanica)Before mating, they present the females with a “gift” in the form of body secretions, which combine sugars and fats. The goal is to attract and hold the attention of females long enough to initiate copulation.
Credit: Ayako Wada-Katsumata.
“This is common mating behavior among insects.”and some other animals: males present females with a tasty or valuable gift. It's like Valentine's Day, but every day,” explains Coby Schall, professor emeritus of entomology at North Carolina State University and co-author of the paper.
However, a new study has shown that femalesThose who have an aversion to the simple sugar glucose are in for a nasty surprise if they mix their saliva with male secretions. “It breaks down the sweet treat from complex sugars into glucose, which becomes bitter in taste. As a result, the courtship ritual ends, the female runs away, and the male remains without mating,” according to a press release for the new study.
As a rule, cockroaches love sugar.But some have developed an aversion to glucose. In 2013, Ayako Wada-Katsumata, a senior scientist at North Carolina State and co-author of the paper, published a study of the neural mechanisms that explain German cockroaches' aversion to sugar. This behavior has become more pronounced due to the presence of simple sugar in cockroach traps. In a 2021 paper, Wada-Katsumata and Shal showed that cockroach saliva converts complex sugars into glucose.
“The secretions of male cockroaches contain different typessugars—in this case, maltose and maltotriose, which are usually preferred by females—and also some fats,” the scientists explain. According to them, maltose is relatively easy to convert into glucose, while maltotriose is more complex and takes a little longer to break down.
Cockroach saliva contains a class of chemicalssubstances that break down sugars. As the females feed on their gift, the maltose quickly turns into glucose, and females who have an aversion to glucose experience a bitter taste and stop feeding, which also makes it impossible to mate.
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