Summary
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1.
Afferent nervous responses to the inflation of the bursa copulatrix in the female cabbage white butterfly,Pieris rapae crucivora, define the information responsible for a behavioural change from acceptance to refusal of mating.
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2.
Afferent impulses in a pair of nerves (bursal nerves) to both sides of the bursa copulatrix were composed of a single unit in each nerve.
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3.
In virigin females, the frequency of spontaneous afferent impulses was constant at 1–3/s. If the bursa was filled with a spermatophore after copulation, the impulse frequency increased about ten times. Obviously the enhanced afferent activity carries information about inflation.
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4.
For experimental analysis, the bursa was inflated artificially by injection of silicone oil. Two response patterns can be separated: phasic during injection, and tonic at sustained expansion.
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5.
The periodic wave-like contraction of the surface musculature of the inflated bursa occurred spontaneously and presumably myogenically as a result of stretch. As the wave of contraction was propagated, the contralateral portion was extended and consequently the afferent impulses increased temporally. Contraction was also evoked by efferent activities.
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6.
The frequency of the tonic afferent impulses was maintained near the empty level until the volume of oil injected into bursa exceeded about 3 μl, then it increased so that the impulse frequency is proportional to the logarithm of the volume. The bursa could be swollen to 16 μl in the experiment, while the volume of the normal spermatophore was about 6 μl.
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7.
The relationship between the volume of the bursa and the mate-refusal response was tested. When normal mating was interrupted, females displayed the mate-refusal posture only if the spermatophore substance ejaculated had been more than half a volume of full spermatophore. An analogous refusal posture was induced when her bursa was expanded by the injection of more than 4 μl silicone oil. These results strongly suggest that the tonic response of the stretch receptor plays the main role in the switch-over of the behaviour.
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I am indebted to Prof. H. Kinosita for his valuable suggestions and encouragement on this work. My grateful thanks also go to Dr. T. Nagai and Dr. D.G.R. McLeod for critical comments on the manuscript.
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Sugawara, T. Stretch reception in the bursa copulatrix of the butterfly,Pieris rapae crucivora, and its role in behaviour. J. Comp. Physiol. 130, 191–199 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00614605
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00614605