Stressing food plants by altering water availability affects grasshopper performance

Franzke, Alexandra; Reinhold, Klaus

doi:10.1890/es11-00095.1

Cited by 37 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 60 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Many of these factors (e.g. food plant composition, soil chemistry, temperature) may well be expected to affect body mass (discussed in Lampe et al 2012), as it has been demonstrated for the effect of drought-and moisturestressed food plants in C. biguttulus (Franzke & Reinhold 2011). We cannot entirely exclude the possibility that other variables in roadside habitats affect signal frequency.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 87%

How grasshoppers respond to road noise: developmental plasticity and population differentiation in acoustic signalling

2013

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Summary1. Increasing levels of anthropogenic noise have the potential to mask signals of acoustically communicating species in their natural habitats. Animals in noise-polluted habitats typically adjust their signals away from high background noise levels to ensure successful signal transmission under challenging environmental conditions. Earlier we demonstrated that male Chorthippus biguttulus grasshoppers from roadside habitats produce courtship signals with elevated frequency components compared to conspecifics from non-roadside habitats.2. Here, we use a common garden approach to study the mechanisms underlying this response. We transferred grasshopper nymphs from seven roadside as well as five non-roadside habitats to the laboratory to rear half of them under noisy and the other half under quiet conditions in a full factorial two-by-two design. Courtship songs of adult males were later recorded under standardized quiet conditions. 3. Males exposed to road noise as nymphs produced signals with higher frequency components compared to males reared under quiet conditions, indicating developmental plasticity as a mechanism underlying the signal adjustment to anthropogenic noise in grasshoppers. 4. In addition, males originating from roadside habitats produced signals with higher frequency components and an increased syllable to pause ratio -a sexually selected signal trait -compared to males from non-roadside habitats. 5. Our results demonstrate for the first time that developmental plasticity may play an important role in song trait modifications in response to anthropogenic noise. Furthermore, they suggest that multiple roadside populations may have diverged in parallel, possibly in response to selection for minimizing signal masking by road noise.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 87%

How grasshoppers respond to road noise: developmental plasticity and population differentiation in acoustic signalling

2013

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Increases in precipitation generally increase host plant quantity and species richness, but can reduce plant nutritional quality (Cleland et al, 2013;Mopper & Whitham, 1992). While the effects of drought stress on host plants can increase grasshopper growth and reproductive success for individual species (Franzke & Reinhold, 2011), more extreme drought can reduce grasshopper species richness (Lenhart, Eubanks, & Behmer, 2015). Fungal pathogens can have major impacts on grasshopper populations (Kistner & Belovsky, 2016), and these pathogens often increase in wetter years (Brust, Hoback, & Wright, 2007).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Fire, grazing and climate shape plant–grasshopper interactions in a tallgrass prairie

et al. 2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Species interactions are integral to ecological community function, and the structure of species interactions has repercussions for the consequences of species extinctions. Few studies have examined the role of environmental factors in controlling species interaction networks across time. We examined variation in plant–grasshopper network structural properties in response to three major grassland drivers: periodic fire, ungulate grazing and climate. We sequenced a plant barcoding gene from extracted grasshopper gut contents to characterize diets of 26 grasshopper species. Resulting grasshopper species’ diets were combined with long‐term plant and grasshopper surveys to assemble plant–grasshopper networks across 13–19 years for six watersheds subjected to varying fire and grazing treatments. Network modularity, generality and predicted grasshopper community robustness to plant species loss all increased in grazed watersheds. Temperature decreased predicted grasshopper community robustness to plant species loss. Grasshopper communities were found to be vulnerable to climatic warming due to host plant loss. However, intermediate disturbance from ungulate grazers may maintain grasshopper diversity and buffer community robustness to species loss. Our results suggest that climate and disturbance shape the structure of ecological interaction networks and thus have many indirect effects on species persistence though direct effects on interaction partners. A plain language summary is available for this article.

show abstract

“…). Compared with the effects of the treatments on female fitness (Franzke and Reinhold ) – female fitness under plant moisture conditions was reduced by about 50% compared with plant drought conditions – for now it is quite surprising that the examined acoustic signal traits were at maximum only slightly affected by the treatment, although according to our hypothesis male signal traits were expected to reflect male body condition and quality. The three noncondition‐dependent acoustic traits which signal attractiveness of C. biguttulus males seem to be buffered against body condition induced by environmental changes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 66%

“…It might be assumed that this fact does not reflect heritable variation in fitness, as it is suggested for secondary sexual traits by a model of Rowe and Houle (1996) and has experimentally been shown for ornament expression in stalk-eyed flies (David et al 2000) and dung beetles (Kotiaho et al 2001). Compared with the effects of the treatments on female fitness (Franzke and Reinhold 2011)female fitness under plant moisture conditions was reduced by about 50% compared with plant drought conditionsfor now it is quite surprising that the examined acoustic signal traits were at maximum only slightly affected by the treatment, although according to our hypothesis male signal traits were expected to reflect male body condition and quality. The three noncondition-dependent acoustic traits which signal attractiveness of C. biguttulus males seem to be buffered against body condition induced by environmental changes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Limited condition dependence of male acoustic signals in the grasshopper Chorthippus biguttulus

Franzke

Reinhold

2012

Ecology and Evolution

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In many animal species, male acoustic signals serve to attract a mate and therefore often play a major role for male mating success. Male body condition is likely to be correlated with male acoustic signal traits, which signal male quality and provide choosy females indirect benefits. Environmental factors such as food quantity or quality can influence male body condition and therefore possibly lead to condition‐dependent changes in the attractiveness of acoustic signals. Here, we test whether stressing food plants influences acoustic signal traits of males via condition‐dependent expression of these traits. We examined four male song characteristics, which are vital for mate choice in females of the grasshopper Chorthippus biguttulus. Only one of the examined acoustic traits, loudness, was significantly altered by changing body condition because of drought‐ and moisture‐related stress of food plants. No condition dependence could be observed for syllable to pause ratio, gap duration within syllables, and onset accentuation. We suggest that food plant stress and therefore food plant quality led to shifts in loudness of male grasshopper songs via body condition changes. The other three examined acoustic traits of males do not reflect male body condition induced by food plant quality.

show abstract

Stressing food plants by altering water availability affects grasshopper performance

Cited by 37 publications

References 60 publications

How grasshoppers respond to road noise: developmental plasticity and population differentiation in acoustic signalling

How grasshoppers respond to road noise: developmental plasticity and population differentiation in acoustic signalling

Fire, grazing and climate shape plant–grasshopper interactions in a tallgrass prairie

Limited condition dependence of male acoustic signals in the grasshopper Chorthippus biguttulus

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About