Sexual Selection Dynamics in Field Crickets

Field crickets rely on complex acoustic communication to secure mates, balancing the benefits of attracting females against the risks of predation and parasitism. Male crickets produce distinct calling and courtship songs via wing stridulation, with signal parameters such as pulse rate and frequency shaped by female preference functions. Rapid environmental shifts, including the arrival of acoustically-orienting parasitoid flies, have driven striking morphological and behavioural adaptations. These range from single-locus mutations that silence males to novel wing morphs that generate quieter, higher-frequency calls. Underlying these phenotypic changes are patterns of selection that operate both locally and genome-wide, with compensatory genetic modifications, behavioural plasticity and female permissiveness jointly influencing the trajectory of sexual signal evolution. Studies of natural populations reveal how sexual and natural selection interact to mould communication systems, maintain genetic diversity and facilitate speciation processes in a changing world.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have applied high-resolution temporal genomics to a wild Hawaiian cricket population undergoing rapid loss of song. Analyses reveal that the fixation of a silent wing mutation triggers compensatory intragenomic coadaptation, with linked genes evolving to offset pleiotropic costs. Parallel research across multiple islands demonstrates that identical silent phenotypes can emerge independently at shared genomic hotspots despite ongoing gene flow, underscoring the predictability of adaptive trajectories. Complementary work has characterised a newly arisen “purring” morph, which produces low-amplitude, high-frequency calls that evade parasitoid eavesdroppers yet still attract females, offering an empirical window into the earliest stages of novel signal evolution and private communication channels.

Sexual Selection Dynamics in Field Crickets publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in sexual selection dynamics in field crickets across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Calling song: Long-range acoustic signal produced by male wing stridulation to attract potential mates.

Courtship song: Softer, close-range acoustic display used by males during final mating interactions.

Flatwing mutation: Loss-of-function variant that removes sound-producing structures from male cricket wings, silencing their calls.

Purring morph: Wing variant generating low-amplitude, high-frequency calls that reduce detection by natural enemies while still eliciting female response.

Linkage disequilibrium: Non-random association of alleles at different loci, often indicative of recent selection or demographic events.

Phonotaxis: Movement of an animal toward or away from a sound source, used to assess acoustic preference or host-seeking behaviour.

References

1. Temporal genomics in Hawaiian crickets reveals compensatory intragenomic coadaptation during adaptive evolution. Nature Communications (2024).
2. Rapid parallel adaptation despite gene flow in silent crickets. Nature Communications (2021).
3. Responses of intended and unintended receivers to a novel sexual signal suggest clandestine communication. Nature Communications (2021).
4. Behavioural plasticity compensates for adaptive loss of cricket song. Ecology Letters (2024).
5. Rapid sexual signal diversification is facilitated by permissive females. Current Biology (2023).
6. Parasitoid–host eavesdropping reveals temperature coupling of preferences to communication signals without genetic coupling. Proceedings of the Royal Society B (2023).