Alternation calling and spacing patterns in the field cricket Acanthogryllus fortipes (Orthoptera; Gryllidae)
Field observations and experiments in the Republic of South Africa demonstrated that burrowing male field crickets, Acanthogryllus fortipes, call in alternation by singing during the interval of silence in a neighbour's song. Alternating males had a chirp rate which was 30 to 60% that of nonaltrnating males. Rapidly singing and nonalternating males responded to taped playbacks of conspecific song by reducing their chirp rate to match that of a loudspeaker. Alternation calling is observed after sunset. Males do not alternate when they begin singing during the day. Nearest neighbour analyses of calling males and of cricket burrows show that calling males are spatially aggregated, but that burrows or potential signaling sites are not localized. In playback experiments where the loudspeaker to male distance was repeatedly reduced, males called at distances comparable to those separating actual males. Males became silent, however, when the loudspeaker was moved inside of the minimum intermale distance observed in the field. Spacing patterns are more compact in A. fortipes, a deep burrowing species, than in other gryllines, and A. fortipes is the only cricket species in which alternation of male calls has been demonstrated experimentally.