TY  - JOUR
T1  - Signal Production, Detection, and Behavioral Meaning Across the Ecological Diversity of Insect Chemical Communication
A1  - Elena Fedorova
A1  - Alexey Volkov
A1  - Irina Morozova
A1  - Dmitry Kuznetsov
JF  - Entomological Research Letters
JO  - Entomol Res Lett
SN  - 3108-639X
Y1  - 2023
VL  - 3
IS  - 2
DO  - 10.51847/Lsl2TwLgSa
SP  - 104
EP  - 114
N2  - Chemical communication in insects is often described as if signal production, environmental transmission, detection, neural processing, and behavioral response formed one continuous and self-evident causal chain. Evidence across insect taxa instead shows that each transition has distinct biological constraints and distinct evidential requirements. This integrative review examines how chemical signals are generated, released into heterogeneous environments, detected by peripheral chemosensory systems, and transformed by higher-order neural processing before contributing to behavior. The synthesis emphasizes three recurring sources of interpretive error: inferring behavioral meaning from receptor responsiveness, generalizing laboratory signal delivery to natural odor landscapes, and treating context-dependent responses as fixed properties of compounds. A proposed inferential architecture therefore separates production, environmental availability, peripheral detectability, neural interpretation, and behavioral use while retaining taxonomic, life-stage, environmental, and methodological boundaries. This separation clarifies why the same chemical can participate in different ecological relationships and why similar behavioral outcomes can emerge from different sensory-processing routes. The resulting framework is intended as an evidence-bounded guide for integrating molecular, neurobiological, behavioral, and ecological studies rather than as a universal mechanistic model.
UR  - https://esvpub.com/article/signal-production-detection-and-behavioral-meaning-across-the-ecological-diversity-of-insect-chemi-qork8xpx8lbms9h
ER  -