van Staaden MJ, & H Römer 1997 Sexual signalling in bladder grasshoppers: tactical design for maximizing calling range. Journal of Experimental Biology 200: 2597-2608

Pair formation in the bladder grasshopper (Bullacris membracioides) is by duetting and male phonotaxis. Low-frequency stridulatory signals emitted by an abdominal resonator in the male and are answered by females using a species-specific time delay. Acoustic transmission in the natural environment was studied using playback of sexual signals over distances of 450 m under two atmospheric conditions (day and night). Upward-refracting sound conditions and a sound shadow zone beyond approximately 50 m prevailed during the day. Acoustic enhancement was demonstrated at night when downward-refracting temperature inversions created a tunnel effect with sound caught between the ground and zones of different temperatures. Transmission conditions are almost ideal at night when the species actually calls; calling distances of 150 m for the male signal in the afternoon increased to 1.5-1.9 km at night, arguably the largest calling distance yet reported for insects. In contrast, female calls transmit over a maximum of 50 m, signifying a marked discrepancy in the active space of sex-specific signals. Transmission distance may, however, be profoundly affected by levels of masking noise. Adaptations to increase signal range may variously be found in the signal itself, in behaviour patterns or in the sensory system. Here we demonstrate aspects of the first two types of adaptation in the sexual signalling system of a grasshopper in which maximizing the calling range appears to be the major selection pressure, with lesser effects imposed by inter- and intraspecific pressures and by the transmission channel.

Key words: Bullacris membracioides, grasshopper, acoustic signalling, transmission distance, meteorology