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 flat

SUBMITTER: Schneider WT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5830660 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature