Signalling and phosphorus: correlations between mate signalling effort and body elemental composition in crickets

被引:33
作者
Bertram, Susan M. [1 ]
Schade, John D. [1 ]
Elser, James J. [1 ]
机构
[1] Arizona State Univ, Sch Life Sci, Tempe, AZ 85287 USA
基金
美国国家卫生研究院; 美国国家科学基金会;
关键词
MULTICOMPONENT SEXUAL SIGNAL; VARIABLE FIELD CRICKET; RESTING METABOLIC-RATE; NUTRIENT LIMITATION; GRYLLUS-INTEGER; DAPHNIA GROWTH; FOOD QUALITY; BIOLOGICAL STOICHIOMETRY; MINERAL LIMITATION; PROTEIN-SYNTHESIS;
D O I
10.1016/j.anbehav.2006.02.012
中图分类号
B84 [心理学]; C [社会科学总论]; Q98 [人类学];
学科分类号
03 ; 0303 ; 030303 ; 04 ; 0402 ;
摘要
Recent findings in the field of ecological stoichiometry indicate that the relationships among key macro-nutrient elements (e.g. carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus) of organisms and their resources may underlie variation in fitness-conferring behaviours. The amount of phosphorus in an individual's body is often correlated with its rate of growth and reproduction, and low-phosphorus diets are known to reduce growth in a number of insect and crustacean herbivores. These findings suggest that the stoichiometric imbalance between organismal biomass requirements and the relative scarcity of nutrients in nature may underlie variation in condition-dependent behaviours. Here we investigate relationships between body elemental composition and long-distance mate attraction signals produced by male Texas field crickets, Gtyllus texensis. Signalling was strongly and positively correlated with the percentage of phosphorus present in the body, but was not correlated with the percentage of carbon or nitrogen present. We also found evidence suggesting that callers and noncalling satellites differ in their elemental composition. To our knowledge, our data are the first to indicate that there may be a relationship between total body phosphorus content and a sexually selected trait. We present a preliminary evaluation of proximate hypotheses to account for the observed patterns. Our results indicate that a stoichiometric perspective may help us to understand the causes of variation in behaviour. (c) 2006 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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页码:899 / 907
页数:9
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