Scale insects are prevalent urban landscape pests and are considered to move between neighboring trees via wind-aided and phoretic dispersal by cryptic, short-lived crawlers. Crawling likely plays a central role in these dispersal processes by shaping their ability to move onto phoretic hosts or to locate host plants and/or settling locations after being blown off a tree. Additionally, walking capabilities of crawlers drive on...

Hymenopteran females are mostly highly selective, choosing their mating partner according to male quality signals, and may also signal their fertility through chemical advertisement. Male insects, in turn, often display a complex set of courtship behaviors to allure females to mate. In this study we explored the mechanisms triggering courtship behaviors in the oligolectic bee Heriades truncorum . In this species, males perform...