Reliable acoustic cues for female mate preference in a katydid (Scudderia curvicauda, Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae) |
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Authors: | Tuckerman, John F. Gwynne, Darryl T. Morris, Glenn K. |
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Affiliation: | Biology Group, Erindale College, University of Toronto Mississauga, Ontario L5L 1C6, Canada |
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Abstract: | The call of male Scudderia curvicauda (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae)consists of a series of phrases, and each phrase contains syllables.Females respond to the male signal with ticks that follow malephrases after a specific period of time. Pair formation takesplace after males locate the female using her response sounds.Repeated recordings of males revealed that the average numberof syllables produced per phrase was a table, within-male parameterand that this parameter was a reliable predictor of male size(pronotum length). Thus, phrase length could be a reliable cueby which females evaluate males. We presented virgin femaleswith a sequential choice of two tape-recorded male calls thatdiffered only in the mean number of syllables produced per phrase.Two different playback tapes were used, and each female wastested on each of 5 consecutive days with the same playbacktape. Females responded more often and with a greater numberof ticks to calls containing more syllables per phrase, andthis preference was maintained throughout the testing period.Male size was a poor predictor of the size of the spermatophorefood-gift produced by the male; therefore, females are probablynot selecting males for this attribute. For one of the playbacktapes, there was a significant increase in female responsivenessover several playback trials, suggesting that females may employa falling-threshold tactic with respect to mate preference. |
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Keywords: | tettigoniidae spermatophore calling song mate choice. |
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