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The Evening Chorus of the Desert Clicker, Ligurotettix coquilletti (Orthoptera: Acrididae): Mating Investment with Delayed Returns
Author(s) -
Greenfield Michael D.
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
ethology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.739
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1439-0310
pISSN - 0179-1613
DOI - 10.1111/j.1439-0310.1992.tb00868.x
Subject(s) - crepuscular , larrea , dusk , grasshopper , courtship , biology , ecology , population , mating , nocturnal , zoology , evening , demography , physics , shrub , astronomy , sociology
The diel periodicities of male signaling and long‐range female orientation to male signals were studied in Ligurotettix coquilletti , a territorial grasshopper in which singing males defend individual host plants ( Larrea tridentata bushes) as mating territories. Systematic observations revealed that both male and female activity schedules were markedly bimodal. Each consisted of a midday plateau and a sharp crepuscular peak. Curiously, neither courtship nor mating followed the intense signaling activity at dusk. The onset of midday activity was advanced by warmer temperatures, whereas the crepuscular peak appeared to be fixed at 15–40 min post‐sunset. Crepuscular singing was louder and typically involved a higher percentage of the population than midday signaling. Singing rates in the evening equalled or exceeded those during the day. Male singing and female relocation movements (toward Larrea bushes) were synchronized remarkably, but each occurred with or without the presence of the other. It is proposed that some females relocate at dusk because this is the last opportunity for these visually orienting insects to move onto their host plant until the following day and that males which sing intensely at this time would tend to attract such females for future mating opportunities.