Kamila Ibatullina

Section 1D

Summary/Reflection
Article 3 presented the rapid evolution of the male crickets inhabiting the Hawaiian
Island of Kauai. In less than 20 generations, more than 90% of the male crickets mutated to a flat
wing impairing them from producing their mating song in response to parasitic flies. The
flat-winged males acted as satellites in order to successfully mate and avoid being infested by
parasites
To elaborate, the male crickets initially had regular wing morphology. They used their
wings as a sexual signal by producing a song that attracted females. However, in addition to a
potential mate, it also attracted the parasitoid fly which would burrow itself in the host, develop,
and then kill the host as they make their exit. In retaliation, the male crickets rapidly adapted by
changing their morphology to flat-winged, losing their ability of song. The loss of song makes it
difficult to attract a mate if the female is in a remote location.
The proposed hypothesis was that as mentioned prior, to combat their circumstances and
to successfully reproduce, flat-winged males act as satellites, meaning that when a
non-flat-winged male plays a courtship song, with their enhanced phonotaxis they would move
in the same vicinity and intercept and mate with the female. Although it is noted that
non-flatwinged male crickets are generally attracted to the songs of other males, however, this
experiment predicted that the flat-winged males move closer and quicker to the song-producing
male than the usual male crickets.
To test this, a field experiment was performed where crickets were collected from 2m
radius sections from three different Hawaiian islands, their sex and wing morphology were noted
and then an Island-specific synthesized song was played and the population was recorded once
more. The results note that the Island of Kauai had a greater proportion of flat-winged males
within the 2m radius section in comparison to the other Islands. This leads to the conclusion that
the loss of sexual signal is the outcome of behavioral plasticity in addition to reduced choosiness
of the females.
I enjoyed this article as it showcases behavioral plasticity and serves as an example of
microevolution. One of the interesting aspects discussed in this article is that in their previous
work, the populations of male crickets altered their songs to counter the parasites but in this case,
there was a complete disappearance of song. My biggest curiosity is since flat-winged males are
reliant on other male callers who are decreasing in numbers, what will happen once all non-flat
winged males disappear? How would male crickets search for females and will the females
reciprocate when there is no song at all?
Doing some research I was able to find newer studies. They continued to investigate the
crickets on the island of Kauai as they questioned why females are not as choosy since generally
female crickets will not mate with the male without a courtship song. However, they found that
female crickets specifically from Kauai have a history of being less picky. Therefore, this
allowed the mutation of flat-winged males to take hold quickly.
An additional and most recent study also answers the question of what happens once the
ability of song is completely lost. Apparently, this study found that males of Kauai behave
differently from cricket mals on other islands as without their songs they are forced to wander
around more, giving them the opportunity to meet a female cricket. Although they crickets may
have lost their sexual signal, perhaps they will be able to adapt by shuffling around until they
meet a potential partner.

References
Zuk, M., Rotenberry, J. T., & Tinghitella, R. M. (2006). Silent night: Adaptive
disappearance of a sexual signal in a parasitized population of field crickets. Biology
Letters, 2(4), 521–524. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2006.0539