  We present a quantitative semiclassical treatment of the effects of
bifurcations on the spectral rigidity and the spectral form factor of a
Hamiltonian quantum system defined by two coupled quartic oscillators, which on
the classical level exhibits mixed phase space dynamics. We show that the
signature of a pitchfork bifurcation is two-fold: Beside the known effect of an
enhanced periodic orbit contribution due to its peculiar $\hbar$-dependence at
the bifurcation, we demonstrate that the orbit pair born {\em at} the
bifurcation gives rise to distinct deviations from universality slightly {\em
above} the bifurcation. This requires a semiclassical treatment beyond the
so-called diagonal approximation. Our semiclassical predictions for both the
coarse-grained density of states and the spectral rigidity, are in excellent
agreement with corresponding quantum-mechanical results.
