Socially flexible female choice and premating isolation in field crickets (Teleogryllus spp.)

Abstract

Social influences on mate choice are predicted to influence evolutionary divergence of closely related taxa, because of the key role mate choice plays in reproductive isolation. However, it is unclear whether females choosing between heterospecific and conspecific male signals use previously experienced social information in the same manner or to the same extent that they do when discriminating among conspecific mates only. We tested this using two field cricket sister species (Teleogryllus oceanicus and Teleogryllus commodus), in which considerable information is known about the role of male calling song in premating isolation, in addition to the influence of acoustic experience on the development of reproductive traits. We manipulated the acoustic experience of replicate populations of both species and found, unexpectedly, that experience of male calling song during rearing did not change how accurate females were in choosing a conspecific over a heterospecific male song during playback trials. However, females with acoustic experience were considerably less responsive to male song compared with na€ ıve females. Our results suggest that variation in the acoustic environment affects mate choice in both species, but that it may have a limited impact on premating isolation. The fact that social flexibility during interspecific mate discrimination does not appear to operate identically to that which occurs during conspecific mate discrimination highlights the importance of considering the context in which animals exercise socially flexible mating behaviours. We suggest an explanation for why social flexibility might be context dependent and discuss the consequences of such flexibility for the evolution of reproductive isolation.

Predator experience overrides learned aversion to heterospecifics in stickleback species pairs

“…Another potential explanation is that discriminating between species may be somewhat distinct from within-species mate choice. Consistent with this idea, previous work has found that some mate choice strategies used within species are not applied between species in threespine sticklebacks [43,54] and crickets [75].…”

Female mate choice plasticity is affected by the interaction between male density and female age in a field cricket

“…Indeed, adult field crickets show behavioural differences based upon the male calling environments that they experienced recently (Bailey & Macleod, 2014;Bailey & Zuk, 2008, 2009) and as juveniles (Bailey, Gray, & Zuk, 2010;DiRienzo, Pruitt, & Hedrick, 2012;Kasumovic, 2013;Kasumovic, Hall, & Brooks, 2012). Specifically, female field crickets have repeatedly been shown to express stronger responses to male calls following exposure to less variable calls (Kasumovic et al, 2012), less preferred calls (Bailey & Zuk, 2009), or silence (Bailey & Macleod, 2014;Bailey & Zuk, 2008). If our females did remember their social environment more than the 6 days prior to testing, then their behaviour during the test may have been based on more than just the information gathered while in the low-or high-density treatments.…”

The effects of social experience with varying male availability on female mate preferences in a wolf spider

“…There was a significantly positive relationship between the total number of males that females saw during their penultimate stage and how selective they are as adults (Pearson correlation R 2 =0.0976, N=96, P=0.0019) Rutledge et al 2010). Studies on the effects of the experience with the presence vs absence of experience with male courtship signals in some of these studies are biologically relevant (e.g., Bailey and Zuk 2008;Bailey 2011;Bailey and Macleod 2014). However, future studies on SCAP in all animal taxa should be sure to investigate the variation in the levels of experience (as opposed to presence vs absence), with consideration for the appropriate experimental design (e.g., experience with simultaneous vs subsequent male encounters and/or variation in encounter rate) to manipulate the perceived availability of potential mates.…”

“…While the relationship between total males and the likelihood for females to be receptive to males with small tufts is negative, it is not significant (logistic regression Z=1.586, P=0.1130). Vertical lines indicate the standard error of the predicted probability of the logistic regression fit invertebrate species adds to current research that demonstrates that invertebrate behaviors are not rigid in their matingpref- erences (butterflies: Westerman et al 2012pref- erences (butterflies: Westerman et al , 2014 crickets: Bailey and Zuk 2008;Bailey 2011;Kasumovic et al 2012;Bailey and Macleod 2014;Atwell and Wagner 2014; fruit flies: Dukas 2005; katydids: Fowler-Finn and Rodriguez 2012; wolf spiders: Hebets 2003;Hebets and Vink 2007;Hebets 2007; …”

“…Recent research across a variety of arthropods has demonstrated that invertebrates are not rigid in their mating preferences, making them useful study organisms to investigate SCAP (fruit flies : Dukas 2005;katydids: Fowler-Finn and Rodriguez 2012;crickets: Bailey and Zuk 2008;Bailey 2011;Kasumovic et al 2012;Bailey and Macleod 2014;wolf spiders: Hebets 2003;Hebets and Vink 2007;Hebets 2007;Rutledge et al 2010). In particular, Schizocosa ocreata is a useful organism to study the plasticity of female mate preferences for several reasons.…”