Mate choice behavior of female field crickets is not affected by exposure to heterospecific calling songs

Authors: KURIWADA, TAKASHI - Kagoshima University; KAWASAKI, RINTARO - Kagoshima University; KUWANO, AKIFUMI - Kagoshima University; Reddy, Gadi V.P.

Submitted to: Environmental Entomology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/17/2020
Publication Date: 4/9/2020
Citation: Kuriwada, T., Kawasaki, R., Kuwano, A., Reddy, G.V. 2020. Mate choice behavior of female field crickets is not affected by exposure to heterospecific calling songs. Environmental Entomology. 49(3):561-565. https://doi.org/10.1093/ee/nvaa034.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/ee/nvaa034

Interpretive Summary: Intraspecific communication with acoustic, chemical, or visual signals is used by many Animals. In many insects and anurans, acoustic signals are used for communication between the sexes. The acoustic signals of multiple species occurring at the same time and in the same habitat can create sufficient noise that intraspecific communication is compromised. insects have been found to undergo behavioral and physiological adaptations. Generally, calling songs of higher energy expenditure, such as higher calling rate and larger amplitude, often attract more females in the field cricket A series of playback experiments were carried out with both attractive and unattractive songs of two field cricket species to test whether acoustic interference by the calling song of one species depends on the attractiveness of another species calling song. In particular, when attractive calling song was presented to female, their mate choice behavior was weakly interfered by the song. On the other hand, female mate choice behavior was strongly interfered by field cricket song under the presence of unattractive song. Overall, the results from current studies indicate that the acoustic interference does not explain the co-occurrence of the two species in the same habitat.

Technical Abstract: Many animals produce acoustic signals to mark territories and attract mates. When different species produce acoustic signals simultaneously, the signals create a noisy environment, with potential acoustic interference between species. Theoretical studies suggest that such reproductive interference may have strong effects on species interaction. For example, the inferior resource competitor can survive if its disadvantage is counterbalanced by superiority in reproductive interference. Two field cricket species, Teleogryllus occipitalis (Audinet- Serville) and Loxoblemmus equestris Saussure (both Gryllidae), co-occur in the same habitat. A previous study has shown that L. equestris is an inferior species to T. occipitalis in terms of resource competition. Therefore, we predicted that mate location and choice behavior of female T. occipitalis would be negatively affected by the acoustic signals of L. equestris and tested this with a series of playback experiments. The mate choice behavior of female T. occipitalis was not significantly affected by the calling song of L. equestris. Our results suggest that the acoustic interference does not explain the co-occurrence of the two species in the same habitat.