Male spacing behaviour and acoustic interactions in a field cricket: implications for female mate choice

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2006.02.022 Byline: Natasha Mhatre, Rohini Balakrishnan Abstract: Males of several acoustically communicating orthopteran species form spatially and temporally structured choruses. We investigated whether male field crickets of the species Plebeiogryllus guttiventris formed choruses in the field. Males formed spatial aggregations and showed fidelity to a calling site within a night, forming stable choruses. Within aggregations, the acoustic ranges of males overlapped considerably. We tested whether males within hearing range of each other interacted acoustically. The chirps of simultaneously calling males were aphasic with respect to each other and showed no significant alternation or synchrony of calls. Some individuals changed temporal features of their calling songs such as chirp durations and chirp rates in response to a simultaneously calling neighbour. The implications of these results for female mate choice are discussed. Author Affiliation: Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, India Article History: Received 13 October 2005; Revised 8 December 2005; Accepted 18 February 2006 Article Note: (miscellaneous) MS. number: 8703