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

2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 521-524 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlene Zuk ◽  
John T Rotenberry ◽  
Robin M Tinghitella
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Hawaiian Island ◽  
Encounter Rate ◽  
Sexual Signals ◽  
Wing Morphology ◽  
Sexual Signal ◽  
Mate Attraction ◽  
Field Crickets ◽  
Morphological Mutation

Abstract 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 Kauai, more than 90% of male field crickets ( Teleogryllus oceanicus ) shifted in less than 20 generations from a normal-wing morphology to a mutated wing that renders males unable to call (flatwing). Flatwing morphology protects male crickets from the parasitoid, which uses song to find hosts, but poses obstacles for mate attraction, since females also use the males' song to locate mates. Field experiments support the hypothesis that flatwings overcome the difficulty of attracting females without song by acting as ‘satellites’ to the few remaining callers, showing enhanced phonotaxis to the calling song that increases female encounter rate. Thus, variation in behaviour facilitated establishment of an otherwise maladaptive morphological mutation.

scholarly journals Acoustic experience shapes female mate choice in field crickets

2008 ◽  
Vol 275 (1651) ◽  
pp. 2645-2650 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan W Bailey ◽  
Marlene Zuk
Keyword(s):  
Female Choice ◽  
Natural Populations ◽  
Hawaiian Island ◽  
Female Mate Choice ◽  
Field Cricket ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Field Crickets ◽  
Male Calling ◽  
Morphological Mutation ◽  
Acoustic Experience

Female choice can drive the evolution of extravagant male traits. In invertebrates, the influence of prior social experience on female choice has only recently been considered. To better understand the evolutionary implications of experience-mediated plasticity in female choice, we investigated the effect of acoustic experience during rearing on female responsiveness to male song in the field cricket Teleogryllus oceanicus . Acoustic experience has unique biological relevance in this species: a morphological mutation has rendered over 90 per cent of males on the Hawaiian island of Kauai silent in fewer than 20 generations, impeding females' abilities to locate potential mates. Females reared in silent conditions mimicking Kauai were less discriminating of male calling song and more responsive to playbacks, compared with females that experienced song during rearing. Our results to our knowledge, are the first demonstration of long-term effects of acoustic experience in an arthropod, and suggest that female T. oceanicus may be able to compensate for the reduced availability of long-range male sexual signals by increasing their responsiveness to the few remaining signallers. Understanding the adaptive significance of experience-mediated plasticity in female choice provides insight into processes that facilitate rapid evolutionary change and shape sexual selection pressure in natural populations.

The future of research with carnivorous plants

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron M. Ellison ◽  
Lubomír Adamec
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Population Biology ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Species Concept ◽  
Intraspecific Variability ◽  
Carnivorous Plants ◽  
Assisted Migration ◽  
Transcriptomic Data ◽  
Phylogenetic Framework

The material presented in the chapters of Carnivorous Plants: Physiology, Ecology, and Evolution together provide a suite of common themes that could provide a framework for increasing progress in understanding carnivorous plants. All speciose genera would benefit from more robust, intra-generic classifications in a phylogenetic framework that uses a unified species concept. As more genomic, proteomic, and transcriptomic data accrue, new insights will emerge regarding trap biochemistry and regulation; interactions with commensals; and the importance of intraspecific variability on which natural selection works. Continued elaboration of field experiments will provide new insights into basic physiology; population biology; plant-animal and plant-microbe relationships; and evolutionary dynamics, all of which will aid conservation efforts and contribute to discussions of assisted migration as the climate continues to change.

Spermatophore retention may accommodate sexual signal loss in Pacific field crickets

2020 ◽  
Vol 74 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mounica V. Kota ◽  
Ellen M. Urquhart ◽  
Marlene Zuk
Keyword(s):  
Signal Loss ◽  
Sexual Signal ◽  
Field Crickets

scholarly journals How male signaling intensity influences phonotaxis in virgin female Jamaican field crickets (Gryllus assimilis)

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan M Bertram ◽  
Karen Pacheco
Keyword(s):  
Startle Response ◽  
Acoustic Startle ◽  
Acoustic Startle Response ◽  
Virgin Female ◽  
Detection Distance ◽  
Mate Attraction ◽  
Female Mate Preference ◽  
Field Crickets ◽  
Perceptual Limits ◽  
Perceived Predation Risk

Understanding female mate preference is important for determining the strength and the direction of sexual trait evolution. Male signalling intensity is often an important predictor of mating success because higher intensity (louder) signallers are detectable at greater distances. However, if females are simultaneously more attracted to higher signalling intensities, then the potential fitness impacts of higher intensity signalling should be elevated beyond what would be expected from detection distance alone. Here we manipulated the signal intensity of cricket mate attraction signals to determine how female phonotaxis was influenced. We examined female phonotaxis using two common methodologies: spherical treadmills and open arenas. Both methodologies showed similar results, with females exhibiting highest phonotaxis towards loud (X̅+1 SD = 69 dB) mate attraction signals but showing reduced phonotaxis towards the loudest (X̅+2 SD = 77 dB) signals. Reduced phonotaxis towards supernormal stimuli may occur for several reasons including elevating the females’ perceived predation risk, invoking females’ acoustic startle response, or exceeding females’ perceptual limits.

scholarly journals Ontogenetic allometry in the foot size of Oligoryzomys flavescens (Waterhouse, 1837) (Rodentia, Sigmodontinae)

2015 ◽  
Vol 75 (2) ◽  
pp. 435-441 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Maestri ◽  
R. Fornel ◽  
TRO. Freitas ◽  
JR. Marinho
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Natural Selection ◽  
Sexual Dimorphism ◽  
Encounter Rate ◽  
Allometric Growth ◽  
Positive Allometry ◽  
Rate Of Growth ◽  
Ontogenetic Allometry ◽  
Males And Females ◽  
Oligoryzomys Flavescens

Ontogenetic allometry is the study of how the size or shape of certain structures changes over the course of an animal’s development. In this study, using Huxley's formula of allometric growth (1932), we assessed the changes in the rate of growth of the feet size of the sigmodontine rodent Oligoryzomys flavescens during its ontogeny and compared differences between males and females. We find evidence of a change of polarity during the ontogenetic development of the species, with the presence of positive allometry during pregnancy and negative allometry in adulthood. Moreover, we note the presence of sexual dimorphism in the size of the feet, in which males of the species have a higher rate of growth than females. This growth pattern is positively related to escape from predators in childhood in both sexes and, in adulthood, provides a higher encounter rate of females by males, due to the larger displacement of the latter. We suggest that both the forces of natural selection and sexual selection have acted to shape the evolution of foot size in this species.

scholarly journals Song in the cold is ‘hot’: memory of and preference for sexual signals perceived under thermal challenge

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 751-753 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michaël Beaulieu ◽  
Keith W. Sockman
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Thermal Environment ◽  
High Elevation ◽  
Sexual Signals ◽  
Sexual Signal ◽  
Male Song ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Melospiza Lincolnii ◽  
Recorded Temperature

The environmental conditions under which signals are perceived can affect receiver responses. Many songbird populations produce a song chorus at dawn, when, in cold habitats, they would experience thermal challenge. We recorded temperature and the song activity of Lincoln's sparrows ( Melospiza lincolnii ) on a high-elevation meadow, and determined that song behaviour is concentrated around the coldest time of the day, at dawn. We hypothesized that this is because male song in the cold is more attractive to females than song in the warm. To test this, we exposed laboratory-housed Lincoln's sparrow females to songs at 1°C and 16°C, which they naturally experience in the wild. Females spent 40 per cent more time close to the speaker during playback at 1°C than at 16°C. When tested at 16°C 1–2 days later, females biased their movement towards the speaker playing songs previously heard at 1°C over 16°C. Thus, female Lincoln's sparrows remembered and affiliated with songs they heard under thermal challenge, indicating that the thermal environment can affect the attractiveness of a sexual signal.

scholarly journals Natural selection drives genome-wide evolution via chance genetic associations

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zachariah Gompert ◽  
Jeffrey Feder ◽  
Patrik Nosil
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Indirect Selection ◽  
Direct Selection ◽  
Deer Mice ◽  
Major Theme ◽  
Genetic Associations ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Stick Insects ◽  
Causal Variants

Abstract Understanding selection's impact on the genome is a major theme in biology. Functionally-neutral genetic regions can be affected indirectly by natural selection, via their statistical association with genes under direct selection. The genomic extent of such indirect selection, particularly across loci not physically linked to those under direct selection, remains poorly understood, as does the time scale at which indirect selection occurs. Here we use field experiments and genomic data to show that widespread statistical associations with genes known to affect fitness in stick insects, deer mice and stickleback fish cause many genetic loci across the genome to be impacted indirectly by selection. We then show that statistical associations with other, unknown causal variants make aspects of evolution more predictable in stick insects. Thus, natural selection combines with chance genetic associations to affect genome-wide evolution across linked and unlinked loci and even in modest-sized populations.

scholarly journals Silent crickets reveal the genomic footprint of recent adaptive trait loss

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonia Pascoal ◽  
Judith E. Risse ◽  
Xiao Zhang ◽  
Mark Blaxter ◽  
Timothee Cezard ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gene Expression ◽  
Signal Loss ◽  
Sexual Signal ◽  
Adaptive Trait ◽  
Field Crickets ◽  
Altered Gene Expression ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Altered Gene ◽  
High Density Linkage Map ◽  
Mutational Effect

Secondary trait loss is widespread and has profound consequences, from generating diversity to driving adaptation. Sexual trait loss is particularly common. Its genomic impact is challenging to reconstruct because most reversals occurred in the distant evolutionary past and must be inferred indirectly, and questions remain about the extent of disruption caused by pleiotropy, altered gene expression and loss of homeostasis. We tested the genomic signature of recent sexual signal loss in Hawaiian field crickets, Teleogryllus oceanicus. Song loss is controlled by a sex-linked Mendelian locus, flatwing, which feminises male wings by erasing sound-producing veins. This variant spread rapidly under pressure from an eavesdropping parasitoid fly. We sequenced, assembled and annotated the T. oceanicus genome, produced a high-density linkage map, and localised flatwing on the X chromosome. We characterised pleiotropic effects of flatwing, including changes in embryonic gene expression and alteration of another sexual signal, chemical pheromones. Song loss is associated with pleiotropy, hitchhiking and genome-wide regulatory disruption which feminises flatwing male pheromones. The footprint of recent adaptive trait loss illustrates R. A. Fisher's influential prediction that variants with large mutational effect sizes can invade genomes during the earliest stages of adaptation to extreme pressures, despite having severely disruptive genomic consequences.

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