Skip Navigation

This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow Lay Summary
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Search for citing articles in:
ISI Web of Science (11)
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Müller, P.
Right arrow Articles by Robert, D.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by Müller, P.
Right arrow Articles by Robert, D.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

Behavioral Ecology Vol. 13 No. 5: 598-606
© 2002 International Society for Behavioral Ecology

Death comes suddenly to the unprepared: singing crickets, call fragmentation, and parasitoid flies

Pie Müllera and Daniel Robertb

a Laboratory for Bioacoustics, Institute of Zoology, University of Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zürich, Switzerland b School of Biological Sciences, Woodland Road, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1UG, UK

Address correspondence to P. Müller. E-mail: piemue{at}zool.unizh.ch.

Male field crickets are subject to a delicate dilemma because their songs simultaneously attract mates and acoustic predators. It has been suggested that in response, crickets have modified various temporal song parameters to become less attractive to acoustic predators. We investigated whether crickets with chirping (versus trilling) song structures are less likely to attract acoustically orienting parasitoid flies. Experimentally, we evaluated the phonotactic quest of the parasitoid fly Ormia ochracea in response to broadcast cricket calls, presented both simultaneously (choice paradigm) and sequentially (no-choice paradigm). Flight trajectories were recorded in darkness using three-dimensional active infrared video tracking. The flies showed remarkable phonotactic accuracy by landing directly on the loudspeaker. The introduction of acoustic fragmentation that resembles calls of many chirping crickets altered the flies' phonotactic accuracy only slightly. Our results document differential attraction between trilling and chirping cricket songs and quantitatively demonstrate that chirping songs, if presented alone, do not impair the efficiency (temporal investment and landing accuracy) of the flies' phonotactic quest. This study shows that song fragmentation is no safeguard against acoustic parasitism. We conclude that, in general, a cricket may reduce predation only if its neighbors are acoustically more conspicuous, chiefly by amplitude.

Key words: communication, Gryllus, Ormia, parasitism, phonotactic behavior, trajectory analysis.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USAHome page
N. Lee, D. O. Elias, and A. C. Mason
A precedence effect resolves phantom sound source illusions in the parasitoid fly Ormia ochracea
PNAS, April 14, 2009; 106(15): 6357 - 6362.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Behav EcolHome page
X. E. Bernal, A. S. Rand, and M. J. Ryan
Acoustic preferences and localization performance of blood-sucking flies (Corethrella Coquillett) to tungara frog calls
Behav. Ecol., September 1, 2006; 17(5): 709 - 715.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.