The Assemblage of Acoustically Communicating Crickets of a Tropical Evergreen Forest in Southern India: Call Diversity and Diel Calling Patterns

A novel acoustic-vibratory multimodal duet

“…Onomarchus uninotatus (Serville 1838), a pseudophylline bushcricket that has been described in Malaysia (Heller, 1995) and Southwestern India (Diwakar and Balakrishnan, 2007), has an unusually low male acoustic call frequency of 3.2 kHz (Diwakar and Balakrishnan, 2007). In this study, we report that the primary female response to the male acoustic call consists of bouts of tremulation that emit a measurable vibration signal, whose timing bears a specific temporal relationship to the chirps of the male acoustic call.…”

“…The female tremulation signal had maximum power at 48.13±7.41 Hz (10 tremulations each in N=5 individuals; the frequency spectrum of 10 tremulations in one individual is shown in Fig. 1B), compared with the 3.2 kHz peak on average for the male acoustic call (Diwakar and Balakrishnan, 2007) (the frequency spectrum of a sample chirp of the male acoustic call can be seen in Fig. 1B).…”

“…Flight was a significantly less frequently observed behavior than either tremulation (χ 2 =13.07, d.f.=1, P=0.0003) or phonotaxis (χ 2 =5.79, d.f.=1, P=0.0055). Tremulation was not observed in silent control trials or in response to a sympatric heterospecific Gryllacropsis call (Diwakar and Balakrishnan, 2007) played back at the same sound pressure level (SPL) as the conspecific call (Fig. 4A).…”

Comparisons Between Autonomous Acoustic Recordings and Avian Point Counts in Open Woodland Savanna

“…According to the ''acoustic niche hypothesis'' (ANH; Krause 1987), competition between multiple emitter-receiver couples for limited acoustic space should lead to diversity in acoustic signals (Garcia-Rutledge and Narins 2001, Bradbury and Vehrencamp 2011), defined as diversity in frequency, in daily and seasonal activity patterns, and/or in spatial sound-production locations (Ficken et al 1985, Gottsberger and Gruber 2004, Diwakar and Balakrishnan 2007. Such competition for acoustic space has been highlighted both between and within bird species.…”

Post-Embryonic Development of Circadian Oscillations Within and Outside the Optic Lobe in the Cricket,Gryllus bimaculatus

“…In tropical areas, many species, also including bush crickets, are colocalized in a narrow area. Some species are known to sing in a manner of temporal compartmentalization (Diwakar and Balakrishnan, 2007). In other cases, inter-specific interaction apparently determines the daily temporal singing pattern.…”