Nutritional effects on male calling behaviour in the variable field cricket

Diet influences mate choice selectivity in adult female wolf spiders

“…In a previous study using S. ocreata, only diet quantity was manipulated, and while development time, adult size and secondary sexual traits were shown to depend on food quantity during development, that study did not address any aspects of individual behavior . Several recent studies, however, suggest that the nutritional quality of food can influence a variety of behaviors in arthropods, including courtship (Wagner and Hoback, 1999;Holzer et al, 2003;Hunt et al, 2004;Bertram et al, 2006) and mating (Mallard & Barnard, 2004). In addition, it has been suggested that predatory arthropods such as spiders are frequently nutrient limited in nature (Denno and Fagan, 2003;Fagan and Denno, 2004) and that food quantity is also often limited (Wise, 1993;Wise, 2006).…”

Sound signalling in orthoptera

“…There is also evidence in some species that, in populations that are nutrient stressed, males reduce their calling activity, for example in Ephippiger ephippiger (Ritchie et al, 1998) and Gryllus lineaticeps (Wagner and Hoback, 1999). In G. lineaticeps, this appears to be because males have less energy available for calling.…”

The effect of past condition on a multicomponent sexual signal

“…Befitting 'good genes' models, longterm signals may be especially important in female mate choice, because such signals may more reliably reflect the genetic quality of males than would signals subject to short-term environmental variation (Hill et al 1999;Kokko et al 1999). Several empirical studies confirmed that variation in trait expression might reflect male con-dition, as determined by current nutrition (Kodric -Brown 1989;Wagner & Hoback 1999) or degree of parasitism (Milinski & Bakker 1990;Møller et al 1999). Alternatively, the expression of secondary sexual ornaments might vary with past condition, in particular with variation in the environmental conditions experienced during juvenile growth.…”