Inbreeding and courtship calling in the cricket Teleogryllus commodus

Abstract

Male field crickets produce two acoustic signals for mating: advertisement calls and courtship calls. While the importance of advertisement calling in mate attraction is well understood, the function of courtship calling is less clear. Here, we tested if the courtship call of male crickets Teleogryllus commodus signals aspects of male quality by comparing the calls of inbred and outbred males. We examined the effect of one generation of full sibling mating on fine-scale call structure, along with several life history traits. Inbreeding reduced nymph survival but had no significant effect on weight or development time. Inbreeding resulted in a small but significant change in two of the six call parameters measured. We then tested if inbreeding affects call trait combinations that are important to females by using the results of a previous selection analysis to compare the multivariate attractiveness of the calls of inbred and outbred males. There was no difference. We conclude that the courtship call of T.commodus is not a reliable signal of aspects of male quality that are affected by inbreeding (which generally reduces fitness-enhancing traits). It might, however, signal components of male fitness that are not affected by changes in heterozygosity.