Sex can be dangerous: Acoustically-orienting parasitoids on field crickets (Orthoptera: Gryllidae)

Alternative Reproductive Tactics Arising from a Continuous Behavioral Trait: Callers versus Satellites in Field Crickets.

Alternative reproductive tactics may arise when natural enemies use sexual signals to locate the signaler. In field crickets, elevated costs to male calling due to acoustically orienting parasitoid flies create opportunity for an alternative tactic, satellite behavior, where noncalling males intercept females attracted to callers. Although the caller-satellite system in crickets that risk detec...

The Song Relationships of Four Species of Ground Crickets (Orthoptera: Gryllidae: Nemobius)

Ecology of the field cricket (Gryllidae: Orthoptera) in farmland: the importance of livestock grazing

The field cricket Gryllus campestris used to be very common throughout Europe, but in recent decades its population has declined. We study ecology and behavior of crickets near the Odolanów, Poland, between 2009 2011, with emphasis on the effects of grazing of cattle and horses on insects population. We compared the number of burrows per square meter on both grazed and non-grazed areas and exam...

Geographic variation in female preference functions and male songs of the field cricket Teleogryllus oceanicus.

Male crickets (Teleogryllus oceanicus) produce a complex call consisting of two elements, the long chirp (three to eight sound pulses) followed by a series of short chirps (each with two sound pulses). There is significant geographic variation in the temporal structure of calls, and the long chirp is selected against by acoustically orienting parasitoids in some populations. Here we examine geo...

Silent night: adaptive disappearance of a sexual signal in a parasitized population of field crickets.

Sexual signals are often critical for mate attraction and reproduction, although their conspicuousness exposes them to parasites and predators. We document the near-disappearance of song, the sexual signal of crickets, and its replacement with a novel silent morph, in a population subject to strong natural selection by a deadly acoustically orienting parasitoid fly. On the Hawaiian Island of Ka...