Male field cricket song reflects age, allowing females to prefer young males

Abstract

Sexual selection often involves female preference for males of a certain age, and a body of theory predicts preference for old males. We measured a comprehensive set of traits from the acoustic sexual display of male field crickets, Gryllus bimaculatus, and found that nearly all song traits changed predictably as males aged, involving a general slowing down of the wing movements during song production. Our female preference experiments indicated a strong and repeatable preference for the songs of young males, contradicting the existing literature, which argues that female crickets prefer older males on the basis of changes in song carrier frequency. Rather, female preference for young male song was determined by its high energetic quality. We develop the 'old flight muscle' hypothesis, arguing that age-related degradation of stridulatory muscle performance is likely to result in the observed changes with age. Secondary sexual characters may be subject to oxidative somatic degradation suggesting that, when males provide only sperm, females should prefer the sexual displays of young males. Our results support new modelling approaches and a growing body of empirical evidence suggesting that old males are not always preferred by females. Ó

Calling Song Recognition in Female Crickets: Temporal Tuning of Identified Brain Neurons Matches Behavior

“…Phonotaxis was strongest at 15 ms pulse duration, 15 ms pulse interval, and 34 -42 ms pulse period. These parameters fall well within the range of the male calling song parameters (Doherty, 1985b;Ferreira and Ferguson, 2002;Verburgt et al, 2010).…”

“…The calling song of male G. bimaculatus consists of sound pulses with a duration of 15-23 ms and pulse intervals (time from the end of one pulse to the start of the next) of 16 -24 ms. Three to four pulses are grouped into chirps, which are repeated at intervals of 190 -250 ms with an overall chirp rate of 2-3 Hz (Doherty, 1985b;Ferreira and Ferguson, 2002;Verburgt et al, 2010).…”

Understanding the link between sexual selection, sexual conflict and aging using crickets as a model

“…This table is based onVerburgt et al (2011) but has been expanded to include recent literature and only presents data for studies that did not apply dietary manipulation.G. integerInter-syllable length; Inter-trill interval; Missed syllables; Peak frequency; Syllable rate; Syllable length; Syllable duty cycle; Syllables / trill; Trill length; Trill duty cycle G. veletis Time spent calling; Pulses / chirp; Chirp duration; Interchirp duration; Pulse duration; Inter-pulse duration T. oceanicus Song duration; Proportion of song that is long chirp.…”

How age influences phonotaxis in virgin female Jamaican field crickets (Gryllus assimilis)

“…In crickets, and other acoustic insects, phonotaxis plays an important role in mating, with females exhibiting positive phonotaxis toward the mate attraction signals of conspecific males (Prosser, 1994; Cade, 1979; Sakaluk, 1982; Solymar & Cade, 1990; Jacot, Scheuber & Brinkhof, 2007; Jennions & Petrie, 1997; Ritchie, 1996; Verburgt, Ferreira & Ferguson, 2011). We found age influenced female G. assimilis phonotaxis.…”

“…Each closing stroke produces a pulse of sound; multiple pulses are concatenated into chirps (Bennet-Clark, 2003). Females exhibit phonotaxis towards male acoustic mate attraction signals and select between potential mates based on variation in male body size, mate attraction signals, courtship signals, aggressive behavior, and contact pheromones (Leonard & Hedrick, 2009; Rebar, Bailey & Zuk, 2009; Thomas & Simmons, 2010; Bailey et al, 2011; Beckers & Wagner, 2011; Verburgt, Ferreira & Ferguson, 2011; Deb, Bhattacharya & Balakrishnan, 2012; Hedrick & Kortet, 2012; Stoffer & Walker, 2012). …”