@article {53067, title = {Roaming Romeos: male crickets evolving in silence show increased locomotor behaviours}, journal = {Animal Behaviour}, volume = {101}, year = {2015}, month = {Jan-03-2015}, pages = {213 - 219}, abstract = {

Loss of sexual signals should be strongly selected against when these signals are necessary for mate attraction or acquisition. Male Teleogryllus oceanicus field crickets produce a long-distance calling song to attract females. Separate genetic mutations recently evolved on the Hawaiian Islands of Kauai and Oahu, rendering approximately 90\% and 50\% of males, respectively, incapable of calling. We examined whether males from three populations, each with a distinct prevalence of this silent \‘flatwing\’ phenotype, show behavioural plasticity in response to being reared in a call-less environment. Crickets from Kauai, Oahu and Mangaia, a Cook Islands population without the flatwing phenotype, either were or were not exposed to calling song during late juvenile and early adult development. Movement assays showed that when males originating from Kauai were reared in silence, they moved sooner, moved more and spent more time walking during silent behaviour trials than did their counterparts reared with calling song. Males from Oahu and Mangaia, however, showed no such effect of acoustic rearing environment on these behaviours. This suggests that there has been directional selection on Kauai for males to respond to a silent environment by increasing their mobility, thus compensating for their lack of song and increasing their chance of encountering receptive females.

}, keywords = {behavioural plasticity, flatwing, n signal los, s Teleogryllus oceanicus, sexual selectio}, issn = {00033472}, doi = {10.1016/j.anbehav.2014.12.023}, url = {http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S000334721400476X}, author = {Zuk, Marlene} } @article {47895, title = {Evolution of a Communication System by Sensory Exploitation of Startle Behavior}, journal = {Current Biology}, volume = {25}, year = {2015}, month = {Jan-12-2015}, pages = {3245 - 3252}, abstract = {

New communication signals can evolve by sensory exploitation if signaling taps into preexisting sensory biases in receivers [1 ;\  2]. For mate attraction, signals are typically similar to attractive environmental cues like food [3; 4; 5 ;\  6], which amplifies their attractiveness to mates, as opposed to aversive stimuli like predator cues. Female field crickets approach the low-frequency calling song of males, whereas they avoid high-frequency sounds like predatory bat calls [7]. In one group of crickets (Eneopterinae: Lebinthini), however, males produce exceptionally high-frequency calling songs in the range of bat calls [8], a surprising signal in the context of mate attraction. We found that female lebinthines, instead of approaching singing males, produce vibrational responses after male calls, and males track the source of vibrations to find females. We also demonstrate that field cricket species closely related to the Lebinthini show an acoustic startle response to high-frequency sounds that generates substrate vibrations similar to those produced by female lebinthine crickets. Therefore, the startle response is the most likely evolutionary origin of the female lebinthine vibrational signal. In field crickets, the brain receives activity from two auditory interneurons; AN1 tuned to male calling song controls positive phonotaxis, and AN2 tuned to high-frequency bat calls triggers negative phonotaxis [9 ;\  10]. In lebinthine crickets, however, we found that auditory ascending neurons are only tuned to high-frequency sounds, and their tuning matches the thresholds for female vibrational signals. Our results demonstrate how sensory exploitation of anti-predator behavior can evolve into a communication system that benefits both senders and receivers.

}, issn = {09609822}, doi = {10.1016/j.cub.2015.10.064}, url = {http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0960982215013585}, author = {ter Hofstede, Hannah M. and Sch{\"o}neich, Stefan and Tony Robillard and Hedwig, Berthold} } @article {47340, title = {Gnominthus gen. nov., a new genus of crickets endemic to Papua New Guinea with novel acoustic and behavioral diversity (Insecta, Orthoptera, Gryllidae, Eneopterinae)}, journal = {Zoologischer Anzeiger - A Journal of Comparative Zoology}, volume = {258}, year = {2015}, month = {Jan-09-2015}, pages = {82 - 91}, abstract = {

The present study describes Gnominthus, a new genus of Eneopterinae crickets from New Guinea Island (Papua New Guinea), which belongs to the tribe Lebinthini. Descriptions focus on general morphology, male and female genitalia, and forewing venation. Bioacoustical analyses of the calling song and the description of the mating behavior are also provided. The novelties found here increase the idea hypothesized before that the Lebinthini may represent a very diverse group in terms of shapes, behaviors and acoustic signals.

}, keywords = {Gryllidae, high frequency, Insecta, mating behavior, new genus, new species, Orthoptera, Papua New Guinea}, issn = {00445231}, doi = {10.1016/j.jcz.2015.06.005}, url = {http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0044523115300024}, author = {Natallia M. Vicente and Olivero, Paola and Lafond, Augustin and Jiajia Dong and Tony Robillard} }