Sawfly larvae protect themselves by secreting mixed drinks of undesirable, volatile chemicals meant to fend off predators, especially ants. Scientists can assess the efficiency of these defenses by staging meetups, so-called bioassays, between prey and predator. But entomologist Jean-Luc Boevé and informatics engineer Rudi Giot have taken a various technique, equating the secretions chemical composition into noises, and determining how human beings respond. Their work appears September 23rd in the journal Patterns.
Boevé and Giot measured how undesirable the noises were to the human ear by measuring how far back each subject walked to reach a “comfort distance” far from loudspeakers. Part of the around 50 individuals explained some of the noises as unpleasant or even frightening. The noises may be equivalent to short excerpts from the background music in a horror or science fiction movie.
This is an audio clip of the chemical defense of a sawfly (Craesus septentrionalis) transformed into a sound by sonification. Credit: Jean-Luc Boeve and Rudi Giot
” Interestingly, we could reveal that the reactions by people and ants are correlated, therefore showing that sonification can approximate the genuine world of predator-prey interactions,” says Boevé, of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, in Brussels.
He first developed the idea of changing volatile chemicals into sounds back in April 2009. “For circumstances, you have little particles like acetic acid consisted of in vinegar or pungent formic acid discharged by some ants, theyre diffuse and extremely unpredictable into the air quickly,” he states. “So, I believed it would be possible to equate a high or low volatility into high or low tones, along with other chemical characteristics into other sound characteristics.”.
This image reveals a sawfly larva (Nematus spiraeae). By raising its abdominal area the insect remains ready to give off defensive volatiles upon harassment. Credit: Jean-Luc_Boeve.
Chemicals are transformed into noises using a procedure called sonification. Crucial characteristics of each molecule, like its molecular weight and what practical groups it has, are mapped onto various parameters of noise, like pitch, tone, and period. The chemical details is fed into a synthesizer which produces a noise for each particle and these sounds are then mixed at numerous volume levels to construct a noise for the defensive secretion of each insect types.
This research study takes benefit of the truth that our brains process details in a different way depending on what sense we use to view it. “Typically, a sonification process is used to discover specific phenomena in large datasets,” says Giot, of the Institut Supérieur Industriel de Bruxelles. “Examples of such phenomena are earthquakes in seismologic information, or network hacking in web information streaming.”.
This image reveals an example of testing ants for the repellence of an unstable. Credit: Jean-Luc Boeve.
This project needed years of laying down groundwork and completing other more classical experiments, including chemical and morphological analyses of the insects. “To be sincere, I considered the sonification job so far-fetched myself that I set the project aside, often for a number of months,” says Boevé.
He hopes that his method will be complementary to already existing techniques of screening volatiles, especially in cases when a pests seasonal availability is undesirable or harvesting big enough amounts of its secretion is challenging.
Referral: “Chemical composition: Hearing bug protective volatiles” by Jean-Luc Boevé and Rudi Giot, 23 September 2021, Patterns.DOI: 10.1016/ j.patter.2021.100352.
Entomologist Jean-Luc Boevé and informatics engineer Rudi Giot have actually taken a different approach, equating the secretions chemical composition into noises, and determining how people respond. He initially developed the concept of changing volatile chemicals into noises back in April 2009. “So, I thought it would be possible to translate a high or low volatility into high or low tones, as well as other chemical characteristics into other sound characteristics.”.
Chemicals are changed into sounds using a procedure called sonification. The chemical information is fed into a synthesizer which produces a sound for each molecule and these noises are then mixed at various volume levels to build a sound for the defensive secretion of each insect species.