Quantity and quality of available mates alters female responsiveness but not investment in the Pacific field cricket, Teleogryllus oceanicus

Direct and indirect effects of sexual signal loss on female reproduction in the Pacific field cricket (Teleogryllus oceanicus)

“…Kauai females showed no physiological plasticity, and generally exhibited low levels of reproductive investment similar to Mangaia and Oahu females reared without song exposure. This result is in line with another recent study that failed to find socially‐induced reproductive plasticity in Kauai T. oceanicus females (Lierheimer & Tinghitella, ). Kauai is the only population where crickets have experienced nearly song‐free conditions for over 15 years (~60 generations).…”

“…Social cues perceived during development can indicate the abundance of potential mates or competitors an individual is likely to encounter in the future, and can induce plasticity in mating behaviors (Atwell & Wagner, ; Bailey & Zuk, ; Kasumovic, Hall, & Brooks, ). For T. oceanicus , rearing in a song‐less environment is associated with more permissive female mating behaviors (Bailey & Zuk, , ; Lierheimer & Tinghitella, ; Swanger & Zuk, ), and male behaviors that should enhance alternative mating tactics, particularly in crickets from Kauai (Bailey et al., ; Balenger & Zuk, ). Such socially‐induced behavioral flexibility likely represents a key factor underlying how flatwing became established (Zuk, Bastiaans, Langkilde, & Swanger, ; Zuk & Tinghitella, ).…”

“…Male T. oceanicus raised in the absence of calling song, mimicking a population with high density of flatwing males or few competitors, invested less in testes size (Bailey et al., ) and exhibit lower sperm viability (Gray & Simmons, ), although acoustic experience does not appear to affect male reproductive success (Heinen‐Kay et al., ). Most studies have found that female crickets reared in the absence of song show reduced investment in reproductive tissues (Bateman, Verburgt, & Ferguson, ; Conroy & Roff, ; Kasumovic, Chen, & Wilkins, ; Kasumovic, Hall, Try, & Brooks, ; Rebar, Barbosa, & Greenfield, ), similar to males, while one study showed no effect of acoustic experience on egg laying (Lierheimer & Tinghitella, ). If experiencing a song‐less environment during rearing is associated with lower reproductive outcomes in T. oceanicus females, sexual signal loss could create a “tragedy of the commons” in which the very trait that benefits males (obligate silence) has negative effects on population fitness through reduced female fecundity (Rankin et al., ).…”

When Does Sexual Signal Exploitation Lead to Signal Loss?

“…In populations with many silent males, like Kauai, crickets have little exposure to conspecific social cues (i.e., song) that indicate the availability of mates or abundance of competitors an individual can expect to encounter. Female T. oceanicus reared in a song-less acoustic environment, mimicking a high proportion of flatwing males, are less choosy about calling song quality during mate choice than females raised with abundant exposure to calling song Swanger and Zuk, 2015;Lierheimer and Tinghitella, 2017). This creates a positive feedback loop where the song-less environment created by the existence of many flatwing males actually renders females more likely to mate with them, further perpetuating the success of silent males.…”

How Developmental and Behavioural Plasticity in the Field Cricket is Influenced by the Acoustic Social Environment and Anthropogenic Noise

“…Research regarding female cricket mate choice in response to juvenile social environment is growing Bailey & Zuk 2008;Bailey & Macleod 2014;Rebar et al 2016;Swanger & Zuk 2015) but more focus has been placed on changes within adult social environment. Adult females that are able to gather social information are capable of altering their mating decisions based on experience (Bailey & Zuk 2009), vary reproductive investment (Conroy & Roff 2018), and display differing levels of responsiveness (Atwell & Wagner 2014;Lierheimer & Tinghitella 2017;Wagner et al 2001b;Swanger & Zuk 2015). Across these studies, findings suggest that females exposed to social information, either through mating, population densities, or acoustic experience, are more likely to show stronger preferences for attractive traits and to be less responsive overall.…”