TY - JOUR T1 - To compete or not to compete: bushcricket song plasticity reveals male body condition and rival distance JF - Animal Behaviour Y1 - 2018 A1 - Anichini, Marianna A1 - Frommolt, Karl-Heinz KW - behavioural plasticity KW - body condition KW - bushcrickets KW - male-male competition AB -

Males of several animals, including insects, use acoustic signals to attract a sexually receptive conspecific partner. In the orthopteran chorusing genus Poecilimon (Tettigoniidae), male signalling as well as female preference can be related to male body condition and to the social environment. Song is thought to be an honest signal of male quality, and song characteristics are therefore often important for sexual and social selection. At the same time, signal expression is plastic and this plasticity depends on the quality of the individual signaller, the acoustic components preferred by females and rivals' body condition and proximity. Using the bushcricket species Poecilimon ampliatus as a model, we investigated how both internal (body condition) and external (level of competition) factors affected the expression of temporal song characteristics. We show that both factors significantly affected acoustic signalling activity: when competing against light rivals, heavy males adjusted the characteristics of their songs to different social conditions. However, light males competing against a heavy rival showed less plasticity in their acoustic signals across social conditions. During the most escalated competition, heavier males increased their acoustic signal investment up to the maximum level, signalling with longer verses and higher duty cycles, in comparison to all other treatments. Body condition and the social environment affected male acoustic signal activity, which suggests that these factors mediate the allocation of resources for signalling and different strategies adopted in competition. The adaptive plasticity of acoustic signals in this species raises new questions about the potential role that this process could play in natural choruses, where more than two competitors are signalling simultaneously.

VL - 142 UR - https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0003347218301738https://api.elsevier.com/content/article/PII:S0003347218301738?httpAccept=text/xmlhttps://api.elsevier.com/content/article/PII:S0003347218301738?httpAccept=text/plain JO - Animal Behaviour ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Baseline data for automated acoustic monitoring of Orthoptera in a Mediterranean landscape, the Hymettos, Greece JF - Journal of Insect Conservation Y1 - 2014 A1 - Gerlind U.C. Lehmann A1 - Frommolt, Karl-Heinz A1 - Arne W. Lehmann A1 - Riede, Klaus KW - Autonomous monitoring KW - Biodiversity monitoring KW - Orthoptera KW - sound KW - wildlife recording AB -

Acoustic emissions of animals serve communi- cative purposes and most often contain species-specific and individual information exploitable to listeners, rendering bioacoustics a valuable tool for biodiversity monitoring. Recording bioacoustic signals allows reproducible species identification. There is a great need for increased use and further development of automated animal sound recording and identification to improve monitoring efficiency and accuracy for the benefit of conservation. Greece, with its high number of endemic species, represents a hotspot for European Biodiversity, including Orthopteran insects. Songs of many Orthoptera might be employed for the inventorying and monitoring of individual species and communities. We assessed the regional spatio-temporal composition of Orthoptera species at the Hymettos near Athens, which is a Natura 2000 site under constant threat due to the surrounding megacity. Within the framework of the EU Life Plus funded AmiBio project, we documented the Orthopteran species’ habitat characteristics, their co-occurrence and phenology. We found, in total, 20 species with seven to ten Orthoptera at locations characterised by diverse vegetation patterns of perennial herbs and bushes. For the purposes of implemen- tation of an automated remote monitoring scheme, we identified sampling sites with high Orthopteran diversity, allowing the monitoring of all singing Orthoptera within single localities. By analysing sound depositories and adding recordings from new sample individuals, we established a song library as prerequisites for future automatic song detection. Based on our results, acoustic recording units have been placed at remote sites at the Hymettos. We discuss recommendations for further studies to fully employ the potential of automated acoustic monitoring of Orthoptera. A reliable assessment of singing Orthoptera needs recording units covering ultrasound. Due to high attenuation and absorbance by the vegetation, particularly of the high fre- quencies characterising Orthopteran songs, positioning of microphones at sites is critical: the microphone sensor net- work has to be an order of magnitude denser than for mon- itoring birds,

VL - 18 UR - http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10841-014-9700-2 IS - 5 JO - J Insect Conserv ER -