CallingSongFeatures

5-syllable chirp duration, 5-syllable chirp period and number of 2-syllable chirps of the P.guttiventris calling song recorded from different individuals

Low-Resolution Calling Effort Scans

Low-resolution calling effort scans for 31 nights (individual files). The first column refers to the unique 3-letter colour codes of individuals followed by the time at which the individuals were first sighted (2nd column). The next set of columns, except the last two, represent the calling activity marked in binary (1 for calling and 0 for non-calling), with headings indicating the start of scan sampling. The final two columns represent the distance (r) and angle (theta) of the calling site from a given reference point

High-Resolution_CallingEffort

High resolution calling effort scans of individuals. The first row contains the individual ID (unique 3-colour codes). The second row refers to the night number corresponding to the low-resolution scans(hence the file number). '0' means that those individuals were found outside of the 31 nights when low-resolution scan sampling was conducted. The third row depicts the Sound Pressure Level (SPL). The fourth row contains the starting time of high-resolution calling effort sampling. The following rows contain the calling effort data coded in binary

Data from: Spatio-temporal dynamics of field cricket calling behaviour: implications for female mate search and mate choice

Amount of calling activity (calling effort) is a strong determinant of male mating success in species such as orthopterans and anurans that use acoustic communication in the context of mating behaviour. While many studies in crickets have investigated the determinants of calling effort, patterns of variability in male calling effort in natural choruses remain largely unexplored. Within-individual variability in calling activity across multiple nights of calling can influence female mate search and mate choice strategies. Moreover, calling site fidelity across multiple nights of calling can also affect the female mate sampling strategy. We therefore investigated the spatio-temporal dynamics of acoustic signaling behaviour in a wild population of the field cricket species Plebeiogryllus guttiventris. We first studied the consistency of calling activity by quantifying variation in male calling effort across multiple nights of calling using repeatability analysis. Callers were inconsistent in their calling effort across nights and did not optimize nightly calling effort to increase their total number of nights spent calling. We also estimated calling site fidelity of males across multiple nights by quantifying movement of callers. Callers frequently changed their calling sites across calling nights with substantial displacement but without any significant directionality. Finally, we investigated trade-offs between within-night calling effort and energetically expensive calling song features such as call intensity and chirp rate. Calling effort was not correlated with any of the calling song features, suggesting that energetically expensive song features do not constrain male calling effort. The two key features of signaling behaviour, calling effort and call intensity, which determine the duration and spatial coverage of the sexual signal, are therefore uncorrelated and function independently

Call intensity is a repeatable and dominant acoustic feature determining male call attractiveness in a field cricket

Acoustic signal variation and female preference for different signal components constitute the prerequisite framework to study the mechanisms of sexual selection that shape acoustic communication. Despite several studies of acoustic communication in crickets, information on both male calling song variation in the field and female preference in the same system is lacking for most species. Previous studies on acoustic signal variation either were carried out on populations maintained in the laboratory or did not investigate signal repeatability. We therefore used repeatability analysis to quantify variation in the spectral, temporal and amplitudinal characteristics of the male calling song of the field cricket Plebeiogryllus guttiventris in a wild population, at two temporal scales, within and across nights. Carrier frequency (CF) was the most repeatable character across nights, whereas chirp period (CP) had low repeatability across nights. We investigated whether female preferences were more likely to be based on features with high (CF) or low (CP) repeatability. Females showed no consistent preferences for CF but were significantly more attracted towards signals with short CPs. The attractiveness of lower CP calls disappeared, however, when traded off with sound pressure level (SPL). SPL was the only acoustic feature that was significantly positively correlated with male body size. Since relative SPL affects female phonotaxis strongly and can vary unpredictably based on male spacing, our results suggest that even strong female preferences for acoustic features may not necessarily translate into greater advantage for males possessing these features in the field. (C) 2013 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Across-night movement of callers.

<p>(A) Histogram showing distribution of total displacement of individuals and (B) Box and whisker plots of average successive-night displacement for pooled data (with intermittent silent nights) and for only consecutive nights. In the box and whisker plots, the central thick line depicts the median of the distribution while the box edges depict the 1^st and the 3^rd quartiles and the whiskers depict 1.5 times the interquartile range.</p

Association between calling effort and number of nights spent calling.

<p>(A) Average daily calling effort and (B) Total calling effort as a function of the number of nights spent calling. Total calling effort = Number of scans where an individuals was found calling across all the calling nights. Average daily calling effort = Total calling effort / Sum of scans per night across the calling nights</p

Spatio-Temporal Dynamics of Field Cricket Calling Behaviour: Implications for Female Mate Search and Mate Choice

<div><p>Amount of calling activity (calling effort) is a strong determinant of male mating success in species such as orthopterans and anurans that use acoustic communication in the context of mating behaviour. While many studies in crickets have investigated the determinants of calling effort, patterns of variability in male calling effort in natural choruses remain largely unexplored. Within-individual variability in calling activity across multiple nights of calling can influence female mate search and mate choice strategies. Moreover, calling site fidelity across multiple nights of calling can also affect the female mate sampling strategy. We therefore investigated the spatio-temporal dynamics of acoustic signaling behaviour in a wild population of the field cricket species <i>Plebeiogryllus guttiventris</i>. We first studied the consistency of calling activity by quantifying variation in male calling effort across multiple nights of calling using repeatability analysis. Callers were inconsistent in their calling effort across nights and did not optimize nightly calling effort to increase their total number of nights spent calling. We also estimated calling site fidelity of males across multiple nights by quantifying movement of callers. Callers frequently changed their calling sites across calling nights with substantial displacement but without any significant directionality. Finally, we investigated trade-offs between within-night calling effort and energetically expensive calling song features such as call intensity and chirp rate. Calling effort was not correlated with any of the calling song features, suggesting that energetically expensive song features do not constrain male calling effort. The two key features of signaling behaviour, calling effort and call intensity, which determine the duration and spatial coverage of the sexual signal, are therefore uncorrelated and function independently.</p></div

Within and among-individual variability in calling effort.

<p>Colour heat map depicting temporal variation in individual calling effort across 31 sampling nights. Red depicts low calling effort and blue depicts high calling effort.</p

Encounter rates of new callers.

<p>An accumulation curve demonstrating the cumulative probability of encountering new callers over successive nights of sampling.</p