Acoustic experience shapes female mate choice in field crickets

Abstract

Female choice can drive the evolution of extravagant male traits. In invertebrates, the influence of prior social experience on female choice has only recently been considered. To better understand the evolutionary implications of experience-mediated plasticity in female choice, we investigated the effect of acoustic experience during rearing on female responsiveness to male song in the field cricket Teleogryllus oceanicus. Acoustic experience has unique biological relevance in this species: a morphological mutation has rendered over 90 per cent of males on the Hawaiian island of Kauai silent in fewer than 20 generations, impeding females' abilities to locate potential mates. Females reared in silent conditions mimicking Kauai were less discriminating of male calling song and more responsive to playbacks, compared with females that experienced song during rearing. Our results to our knowledge, are the first demonstration of long-term effects of acoustic experience in an arthropod, and suggest that female T. oceanicus may be able to compensate for the reduced availability of long-range male sexual signals by increasing their responsiveness to the few remaining signallers. Understanding the adaptive significance of experience-mediated plasticity in female choice provides insight into processes that facilitate rapid evolutionary change and shape sexual selection pressure in natural populations.

Figure 1

Likelihood that females positively responded to calling song playbacks. Females exposed to song (Song) during rearing are represented by grey bars, and those reared in silence (No Song) by black bars. Each female was tested with one of six song models varying in the proportion of long chirp (0–100% long chirp); a positive response was scored if the female moved to the end of the testing arena and touched the playback speaker before the end of the 5 min trial.

Figure 2

Female response latencies. Females exposed to song (Song) during rearing are represented by grey bars, and those reared in silence (No Song) by black bars. Response latency directly reflects the amount of time a female takes to reach an acoustic stimulus starting from the time it is perceived; females with shorter response latencies are interpreted to be more responsive. The asterisk highlights the 60 per cent long-chirp song model that has been shown to be the most preferred song model in population-wide preference tests (Bailey 2008). Bars indicate 1 s.e.

Figure 3

(a) Latency of the first movement for all crickets tested and (b) distance moved from the starting point for all females that did not respond positively during the trial. Bars indicate 1 s.e.