Alternative Male Strategies: Genetic Differences in Crickets

Abstract

Male field crickets, Gryllus integer, call and attract mates, or they silently intercept females attracted to calling males. Selection experiments demonstrate that the duration of nightly calling has an important genetic component. Mean calling times in high and low lines were significantly different and had realized heritabilities of 0.50 and 0.53, respectively. Selection can operate in such a way that each of the alternative forms of male reproductive behavior is associated with a specific genetic substrate. This has not yet been shown for other species in which males adopt contrasting modes of mating behavior.