Body morphology, energy stores, and muscle enzyme activity explain cricket acoustic mate attraction signaling variation.

ABSTRACT: High mating success in animals is often dependent on males signalling attractively with high effort. Since males should be selected to maximize their reproductive success, female preferences for these traits should result in minimal signal variation persisting in the population. However, extensive signal variation persists. The genic capture hypothesis proposes genetic variation persists because fitness-conferring traits depend on an individual's basic processes, including underlying physiological, morphological, and biochemical traits, which are themselves genetically variable. To explore the traits underlying signal variation, we quantified among-male differences in signalling, morphology, energy stores, and the activities of key enzymes associated with signalling muscle metabolism in tw

SUBMITTER: Thomson IR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3946518 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature