Endurance in exercise is associated with courtship call rate in decorated crickets, Gryllodes sigillatus (original) (raw)
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The Energetics of Male Mating Strategies in Field Crickets (Orthoptera: Gryllinae: Gryllidae)
Journal of Insect Behavior - J INSECT BEHAV, 1998
Male field crickets (Gryllinae: Gryllidae: Orthoptera) vary in their mating strategies, particularly in whether they call from defended sites to attract phonotactic females or roam silently in search of potential mates. To better understand the economics underlying these alternative strategies, respirometry was employed to examine the energetic costs of each strategy's component behaviors for a representative species, Acheta domesticus. Advertisement calling in this species, composed of low pulse rate chirps, is an order of magnitude less energetically costly than walking per unit time. However, for gryllids that advertise call with higher pulse rate trills, calling and walking appear to be of equivalent energetic cost. Thus, if energetic costs are important in determining grylline mating strategies, trillers and chirpers should have different sensitivities to change in factors affecting the relative payoffs of each strategy. Field studies of changes in mating behavior with inc...
Longevity, calling effort, and metabolic rate in two populations of cricket
Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 2011
Intraspecific variation in a resting metabolic rate (RMR) is likely to be an important determinant of energetic-resource use and may influence the resources subsequently available for allocation to traits not directly associated with somatic maintenance. The influence of RMR on resource availability could be especially important for condition-dependent sexual traits, such as cricket calls, that are themselves energetically costly to produce. RMR may also be associated with longevity, either negatively because individuals with a high RMR burn resources faster and die young, or positively as individuals with high RMR are more able to accrue resources to fuel survival. Additionally, the associations between RMR and other characters may vary across populations if differential selection or drift shapes these traits. Here we tested for differences in RMR, body mass, calling effort, and longevity in two populations of cricket Gryllodes sigillatus and then evaluated the potential influence of RMR on calling and longevity. We find that RMR, calling effort, and longevity varied across populations, but mass did not. Controlling for population and mass, RMR was not significantly associated with calling effort, but was negatively associated with longevity. These findings suggest that male crickets that live fast die young.
Courtship song and immune function in the field cricket Gryllus bimaculatus
Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2003
It has been assumed that sexual ornaments have evolved to reveal males' health and vigour for females. Choosy females may indirectly use ornaments as an indicator of the presence and effectiveness of genes for resistance against parasites. In this study we tested whether females of the Mediterranean field cricket, Gryllus bimaculatus, can use courtship song as a cue for choosing males with high immunocompetence, measured as encapsulation rate of nylon implants and lytic activity of haemolymph. We found that female crickets preferred courtship songs from males with a high encapsulation rate. Female crickets also had a tendency to prefer courtship songs with high tick rate and long high-frequency tick duration. These preferred song components were positively correlated with encapsulation rate, but negatively correlated with lytic activity of the male. In contrast to previous studies of crickets, there was no correlation between male weight and encapsulation rate or lytic activity. There is some evidence in another cricket species that the ability to encapsulate pathogens is heritable. Thus, in light of this study it seems possible that by preferring males according to their courtship song, females might benefit by increasing the parasite resistance of their offspring.
Behavioral Ecology, 2003
The condition dependence of sexually selected traits is an important assumption of sexual selection theory. Several laboratory studies have documented a positive relationship between food availability, body condition, and sexual display. However, these studies might not reflect the resource allocation between body maintenance, reserves, and the sexually selected trait under natural conditions. Further, the effect of condition-dependent signaling on female mate choice has hardly been investigated experimentally in the field. We therefore investigated the effect of food availability on body condition, calling behavior, and sexual attractiveness of male field crickets, Gryllus campestris, under field conditions. Food availability was manipulated for individual males by supplementing food in a confined area close to the burrow. Food-supplemented males showed a significant increase in body condition, whereas the opposite was found in the control males. Males receiving extra food called more frequently, whereas the calling-song characteristics were not affected by the treatment. Further, food-supplemented males attracted more females than did control males, and their higher attractiveness was partly explained by their superior calling rate. Our study thus indicates condition-dependent signaling as an important determinant of the sexual attractiveness of males to females under natural condition.
Animal Behaviour
Males often signal to attract mates and can show extensive variation in how much time they spend signalling. In crickets, some males signal extensively, spending over 50% of their adult lives attempting to attract a mate. At the other end of the continuum, some males are rarely observed to signal. Given that signalling efforts are usually correlated with mating success, all individuals should be selected to signal with high effort. Why then, do males show such variability? Signalling effort variation may stem from differences in physiological capacity that result from disparities in energy stores, metabolic capacities of the muscles used for sexual signalling, the comparative size of the signalling organs, or overall differences in body size. To address the proximate causes underlying variation in signalling effort, we quantified the morphological, physiological and biochemical variation among male European house crickets, Acheta domesticus, and assessed whether it correlated with signalling effort variation. Surprisingly, we found no correlation between signalling effort and activity of the β-oxidation enzyme HOAD, suggesting that the capacity for lipid metabolism is not associated with signalling effort. Instead, signalling effort variation was associated with differences in overall body size and differences in the activity of the glycolytic enzyme pyruvate kinase. Together our findings suggest that the ability to locate and assimilate high-quality diets both during development (to grow large) and into adulthood (capacity for carbohydrate catabolism) may explain some of the variation in signalling effort in this species.► We examined proximate causes of variation in signalling effort in male European house crickets, Acheta domesticus. ► Signalling effort was associated with body size and activity of the glycolytic enzyme pyruvate kinase. ► The capacity for lipid metabolism was not associated with signalling effort. ► Diet quality (carbohydrate catabolism) may explain some of the variation in signalling effort in A. domesticus.
CONDITION DEPENDENCE OF MALE LIFE SPAN AND CALLING EFFORT IN A FIELD CRICKET
Evolution, 2008
Sexually selected traits are thought to impose survival costs on showy males. Recent empirical work found a negative relationship between male display and survival in a field cricket species (Orthoptera, Gryllidae, Gryllinae) where there is no evidence of a mating bias toward older males. In most species, however, male survival and ornamentation are positively correlated, and older males often have a mating success advantage over younger males. These findings suggest that male quality and survival are positively correlated, but more tests of this hypothesis are needed. We measured the condition dependence of male survival and calling effort in another grylline, Gryllus pennsylvanicus, where older males have previously been shown to have greater mating success. We varied condition by manipulating diet, and measured male life span and calling effort to assess the relative condition dependence of these traits. High- and medium-condition males survived longer than low-condition males, and high-condition males called more than medium- and low-condition males. Differences in calling effort among the condition treatments were not apparent early in life, but emerged as males aged. We discuss possible explanations for the differences between our study and contrasting results such as the previous grylline work.
Costs of an Induced Immune Response on Sexual Display and Longevity in Field Crickets
Evolution, 2004
Immune system activation may benefit hosts by generating resistance to parasites. However, natural resources are usually limited, causing a trade-off between the investment in immunity and that in other life-history or sexually selected traits. Despite its importance for the evolution of host defense, state-dependent fitness costs of immunity received little attention under natural conditions. In a field experiment we manipulated the nutritional condition of male field crickets Gryllus campestris and subsequently investigated the effect of an induced immune response through inoculation of bacterial lipopolysaccharides. Immune system activation caused a condition-dependent reduction in body condition, which was proportional to the condition-gain during the preceding food-supplementation period. Independent of nutritional condition, the immune insult induced an enduring reduction in daily calling rate, whereas control-injected males fully regained their baseline level of sexual signaling following a temporary decline. Since daily calling rate affects female mate choice under natural conditions, this suggests a decline in male mating success as a cost of induced immunity. Food supplementation enhanced male life span, whereas the immune insult reduced longevity, independent of nutritional status. Thus, immune system activation ultimately curtails male fitness due to a combined decline in sexual display and life span. Our field study thus indicates a key role for fitness costs of induced immunity in the evolution of host defense. In particular, costs expressed in sexually selected traits might warrant the honest advertisement of male health status, thus representing an important mechanism in parasite-mediated sexual selection.
Entomological Communications
Mating can trigger different effects on the physiology and behavior of animals, especially in females. These effects can be either beneficial, such as boosting the immune response, or harmful, such as decreasing survival, for example. Cricket females are among the most used models for understanding these life history trade-offs. We recently demonstrated that mated females have a slight cost of reproduction in survival that could be explained if they differed in resource consumption compared to unmated, being able to avoid putative damages of reproduction on self-maintenance. To test whether mating status modulates feeding behavior and self-maintenance (i.e., immunity), we performed two experimental blocks: In the first, we measure the food intake of both virgin and mated females of Gryllus (Gryllus) assimilis (Fabricius, 1775). In the second, we compared the ability to mount an acute immune response (encapsulation) against a nylon filament implant, a widely used method to challenge ...
The Mating Strategy of the Male Short-tailed Cricket Anurogryllus muticus de Geer
Ethology, 2010
Males of Anurogryhs muticus de Geer call with a sound intensity of 92-95 dB SPL/20 cm. The nightly calling time is 198 f 79.5 min. Singing begins with the onset of darkness, and is under circadian control (rLl = 25.35 h). At 27 "C, 02-consumption during rest is 1.7 ml/h/g, whereas for calling 02-consumption rises to 10.76 ml/h/g. According to the CO,/O, ratio, A . muticus burns carbohydrates and lipids at rest, but mostly lipids during stridulation (R = 0.8). The type of fuel oxidized is rapidly adjusted to the particular behavior expressed. The testes serve as a reservoir for lipids, and their lipid level rises from 33.2 f 15.4 pg/mg tissue at the imaginal molt to 95.2 f 43.1 pgl mg tissue by the age of 30 days, although by that time testis size has shrunk by 90 %. Multiple, brief matings compensate for short calling times due to high energy expenditure. Comparative data for Teleogtyllus oceanicus and T. commodus are given, where appropriate.