Vestigial singing behaviour persists after the evolutionary loss of song in crickets
Abstract
The evolutionary loss of sexual traits is widely predicted. Because sexual signals can arise from the coupling of specialized motor activity with morphological structures, disruption to a single component could lead to overall loss of function. Opportunities to observe this process and characterize any remaining signal components are rare, but could provide insight into the mechanisms, indirect costs and evolutionary consequences of signal loss. We investigated the recent evolutionary loss of a long-range acoustic sexual signal in the Hawaiian field cricket Teleogryllus oceanicus. Flatwing males carry mutations that remove sound-producing wing structures, eliminating all acoustic signalling and affording protection against an acoustically-orientating parasitoid fly. We show that flatwing males produce wing movement patterns indistinguishable from those that generate sonorous calling song in normal-wing males. Evolutionary song loss caused by the disappearance of structural components of the sound-producing apparatus has left behind the energetically costly motor behaviour underlying normal singing. These results provide a rare example of a vestigial behaviour and raise the possibility that such traits could be co-opted for novel functions.
Citation
Schneider , W , Rutz , C , Hedwig , B & Bailey , N W 2018 , ' Vestigial singing behaviour persists after the evolutionary loss of song in crickets ' , Biology Letters , vol. 14 , no. 2 , 20170654 . https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2017.0654
Publication
Biology Letters
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1744-9561Type
Journal article
Description
This researchwas supported by Natural Environment Research Council grants to N.W.B. (NE/L011255/1 and NE/I027800/1).Collections
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