Abstract
While thought to be widely used for animal communication, substrate-borne vibration is relatively unexplored compared to other modes of communication. Substrate-borne vibrations are important for mating decisions in many orthopteran species, yet substrate-borne vibration has not been documented in the Pacific field cricket Teleogryllus oceanicus. Male T. oceanicus use wing stridulation to produce airborne calling songs to attract females and courtship songs to entice females to mate. A new male morph has been discovered, purring crickets, which produce much quieter airborne calling and courtship songs than typical males. Purring males are largely protected from a deadly acoustically orienting parasitoid fly, and they are still able to attract female crickets for mating though typical calling song is more effective for attracting mates. Here, we document the first record of substrate-borne vibration in both typical and purring male morphs of T. oceanicus. We used a paired microphone and accelerometer to simultaneously record airborne and substrate-borne sounds produced during one-on-one courtship trials in the field. Both typical and purring males produced substrate-borne vibrations during courtship that temporally matched the airborne acoustic signal, suggesting that the same mechanism (wing movement) produces both sounds. As previously established, in the airborne channel, purring males produce lower amplitude but higher peak frequency songs than typical males. In the vibrational channel, purring crickets produce songs that are higher in peak frequency than typical males, but there is no difference in amplitude between morphs. Because louder songs (airborne) are preferred by females in this species, the lack of difference in amplitude between morphs in the substrate-borne channel could have implications for mating decisions. This work lays the groundwork for investigating variation in substrate-borne vibrations in T. oceanicus, intended and unintended receiver responses to these vibrations, and the evolution of substrate-borne vibrations over time in conjunction with rapid evolutionary shifts in the airborne acoustic signal.
Highlights
Natural and sexual selection have created complex and beautiful signals through which organisms communicate
When comparing purring and typical males, the airborne acoustic signals differed in the ways previously demonstrated
We recorded vibrations in two different male morphs of T. oceanicus that appear to be generated through the movement of the wings, as the pattern in the vibrational channel perfectly matches the airborne signal
Summary
Natural and sexual selection have created complex and beautiful signals through which organisms communicate. These signals are presented in a broad spectrum of sensory modalities, ranging from visual, such as the colorful dances of male jumping spiders, to chemical, like the sweet scent flowers produce to attract pollinators. One of the oldest, yet least understood, modes of communication is substrate-borne vibration, in which vibrations are sent and carried through a substrate (e.g., the stem of a leaf or dirt) to a receiver (Hill 2009, Cocroft et al 2014). Unlike sounds that travel through air, body size does not constrain pitch for vibrational signals (except for those produced via tremulation), meaning that a small animal can potentially produce a very lowfrequency substrate-borne vibration (Cocroft and Rodríguez 2005, Caldwell 2014)
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