• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Saturday, August 2, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Science

Food supply — not ‘live fast, die young’ mentality — makes male crickets chirpy

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
November 1, 2016
in Science
Reading Time: 2 mins read
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram
IMAGE

Credit: Tom Houslay / University of Exeter

Shedding a few pounds might be a good strategy in the human dating game, but for crickets the opposite is true.

Well-fed male crickets make more noise and mate with more females than their hungry counterparts, according to research by the universities of Exeter and Stirling.

It has long been believed that males who acquire ample food can adopt a "live fast, die young" strategy – burning energy by calling to attract females as soon as they are able, at the expense of longevity – while rivals with poorer resource budgets take a "slow and steady" approach, enabling them to save resources and take advantage of their savings later in the season.

But the researchers found that increased diet – rather than any strategic decision by the cricket – led the best-provisioned crickets to chirp for longer. This had no noticeable cost to their lifespan.

Meanwhile hungrier males not only signalled less – meaning fewer female visitors – but also died younger.

Senior author Dr Luc Bussière, of the University of Stirling, said the findings offered a "simpler alternative" to understanding the behaviour of crickets.

"While it was intriguing to think that males might foresee and plan for their future reproductive prospects by strategically staying quiet, what our experiment suggests is actually easier to understand: rather than relying on an ability to forecast the future, crickets appear instead to respond mainly to the resources they have in hand," he said.

Male crickets signal to females using an energetically expensive call, produced by rubbing together their hardened forewings.

The more time they spend calling, the more mates they attract.

The paper, published in Functional Ecology, studied decorated crickets, which mate about once a day on average during their month-long adult life.

Males need a three-hour recovery period following each mating to build a new sperm package, after which they are able to call again in the hopes of attracting another female.

Researchers found that a male cricket's decision about whether to call was primarily based on whether females were nearby – rather than how well-fed they were – but the better-nourished males were able to call for longer and thus increase their mating prospects.

The study also provides insights into how energy budgets keep male displays honest for choosy females over the course of the mating season.

"In nature, a 'better quality' male will likely have better access to resources," said lead author Dr Tom Houslay, a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Exeter.

"Low-quality males might be able to 'cheat' by calling a lot one day, making females think they are high-quality, but this is not sustainable – so there is 'honesty on average'.

"A female may be fooled once or twice, but over time males with more energy will call more – meaning females should tend to make the 'correct' decision by preferring those males."

###

Media Contact

Alex Morrison
[email protected]
01-392-724-828
@uniofexeter

http://www.exeter.ac.uk

Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

Five or more hours of smartphone usage per day may increase obesity

July 25, 2019
IMAGE

NASA’s terra satellite finds tropical storm 07W’s strength on the side

July 25, 2019

NASA finds one burst of energy in weakening Depression Dalila

July 25, 2019

Researcher’s innovative flood mapping helps water and emergency management officials

July 25, 2019
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • Blind to the Burn

    Overlooked Dangers: Debunking Common Myths About Skin Cancer Risk in the U.S.

    60 shares
    Share 24 Tweet 15
  • Neuropsychiatric Risks Linked to COVID-19 Revealed

    43 shares
    Share 17 Tweet 11
  • Dr. Miriam Merad Honored with French Knighthood for Groundbreaking Contributions to Science and Medicine

    46 shares
    Share 18 Tweet 12
  • Study Reveals Beta-HPV Directly Causes Skin Cancer in Immunocompromised Individuals

    38 shares
    Share 15 Tweet 10

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

Special Collection: 2024 Aging Innovation Conference

Lorlatinib’s Real-World Impact on ALK+ NSCLC

TrueBeam vs. Halcyon: Breast Cancer Radiotherapy Comparison

  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.