Abstract

In bush-crickets, males produce a calling song to announce their presence to females. Females ready to mate respond either by a phonotactic approach or signal their presence acoustically by establishing a kind of duet. This duetting behaviour is typical of phaneropterid bush-crickets, of which many species in Europe are flightless. In the long-winged genus Phaneroptera, the females also respond acoustically to the male calling song, which is quite similar in the three west European species in this genus. After acoustical contact, however, the behaviour of males and females of the three species differ markedly. In P. nana, males and females engage in a duet in which the female responds to each syllable of the male song (and he approaches her). In P. falcata, the female only responds to certain elements of the male song that are produced at long intervals. However, after her response the male does not change its song or its position, but often increases its singing activity (and the female approaches him). In P. sparsa the female only responds to particular, very complicated and soft elements of the male song, which are typically repeated at intervals of several to many minutes. After hearing the response, the male drastically changes its song by producing only the soft elements. These parts of the song contain syllables with a unique spectral composition and others that may threaten eavesdropping rivals. In this species both sexes probably move towards each other during mate localization. At present, we can only speculate about the adaptive nature of the different strategies.

Highlights

  • Bush-crickets of the genus Phaneroptera are good flyers and are quite mobile

  • In P. falcata, the female only responds to certain elements of the male song that are produced at long intervals

  • Duets were recorded in stereo using a Sony PC-62 microphone and an Uher M645 audio microphone connected to a personal computer through an external soundcard (Transit USB, “M-Audio”; 44.1 kHz or 64 kHz sampling rate)

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Summary

Introduction

Bush-crickets of the genus Phaneroptera are good flyers and are quite mobile. This capability makes them interesting candidates for studying the effects of climate change in Europe. Males produce calling songs to announce their presence to the females and the females of at least some of the species of Phaneroptera (Zhantiev & Korsunovskaya, 1986; Tauber et al, 2001; Samietz et al, 2014) are known to respond acoustically to males. This duetting behaviour is typical of the subfamily Phaneropterinae (Heller et al, 2015) and is described for many European species (e.g., Stumpner & Meyer, 2001; Heller et al, 2018). Mobile males of Phaneroptera could use other mate finding strategies, possibly more similar to the ancestral situation reported in long-winged tropical phaneropterines

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