Consistent traffic noise impacts few fitness-related traits in a field cricket

Welsh, Gabrielle T.; Anner, Sophia C.; Westwood, Mary L.; Rockwell, Victoria; O’Toole, Hannah; Holiday, Megan; Tinghitella, Robin M.

doi:10.1186/s12862-023-02190-2

BMC Ecology and Evolution

Table 2 Effects of different traffic noise characteristics on T. oceanicus

From: Consistent traffic noise impacts few fitness-related traits in a field cricket

	Trait	Consistent Noise (this paper)	Loud, Variable Noise (past research)	Citation
A. Life History
	Development time	sex	noise	Gurule-Small and Tinghitella 2019
	Adult lifespan	-	noise, sex, pronotum	Gurule-Small and Tinghitella 2019
	Adult size	sex	sex	Gurule-Small and Tinghitella 2019
	Juvenile survival	noise	n.s.	Gurule-Small and Tinghitella 2019
	Adult survival*	n.s.	noise, sex, mated	Gurule-Small and Tinghitella 2019
B. Reproductive Investment
	Number of eggs	-	n.s.	Gurule-Small and Tinghitella 2019
	Proportion of surviving eggs	-	n.s.	Gurule-Small and Tinghitella 2019
	Hatching success**	pronotum	-
	Number of hatchlings**	noise, sex, pronotum	n.s.	Gurule-Small and Tinghitella 2019
	Ovary mass	age	-
	Testes mass	age, pronotum	n.s.	Bowen et al. 2020
	Accessory gland mass	n.s.	-
	Spermatophore mold mass	n.s.	noise	Bowen et al. 2020
	Body mass	-	n.s.	Bowen et al. 2020
C. Behavior
	Mated***	sex	n.s.	Gurule-Small and Tinghitella 2019
	Time to first movement	-	noise	Gurule-Small and Tinghitella 2018
	Time to contact speaker	-	noise	Gurule-Small and Tinghitella 2018
	Search time	-	-	Gurule-Small and Tinghitella 2018
	Number of grids crossed	-	pronotum	Gurule-Small and Tinghitella 2018

Summary of findings in this study compared to those from previous studies in the Pacific field cricket in which variable, but loud traffic noise was broadcast. There are other additional differences in experimental design that may also contribute to the differences we see here. For instance, all previous investigations were conducted with crickets from Mo’orea, French Polynesia, whereas here we study animals from Hilo, Hawaii. Gurule-Small and Tinghitella (2018) used a similar design to this experiment, exposing animals to noise during development, adulthood, both, or neither, but Gurule-Small and Tinghitella (2019) exposed the crickets to noise from the penultimate instar through adulthood, and Bowen et al. (2020) exposed the crickets to noise beginning at the 2nd instar and throughout adulthood
* Note that adult survival was measured slightly differently in the two studies. Our design required dissecting individuals within a standard age range, so we calculated adult survival as the proportion of adults that survived to dissection, whereas Gurule-Small and Tinghitella (2019) measured the number of days adults lived until natural death
** We counted the hatching success (whether a female had zero live hatchlings or more than zero live hatchlings) and number of hatchlings 5 weeks after the female’s week of egg laying ended, whereas Gurule-Small and Tinghitella (2019) counted the total number of eggs laid and the number of eggs that hatched into the first instar. In addition, Gurule-Small and Tinghitella (2019) recorded the number of eggs over the course of a female’s lifetime, whereas we collected eggs for only 1 week, therefore the absolute number of hatchlings are not directly comparable between experiments, though patterns of survival are
***We conducted the mated assay with both sexes, while Gurule-Small and Tinghitella (2019) only conducted it in females

Back to article page

ISSN: 2730-7182

Contact us

General enquiries: journalsubmissions@springernature.com