Abstract
In the first study group of this project we will examine male song character distributions in natural populations of phaneropterid bush-crickets. Then female preferences will be measured against the examined male song characters during play-back experiments: females will be presented with male songs that are modified regarding the examined song characters and female response-ratio will be used to estimate preference functions. Comparing female preference functions to the natural distributions of male song characters in closely related sympatric species will provide us a basis for creating hypotheses on the function of the studied male song characters in species recognition, and will help us to clarify their species level taxonomy. In male song characters that are likely to convey mate-quality information correlation between song character values and mate-quality related male features will be examined during field studies and experimental laboratory work, where changes in song character values will be measured during male condition manipulation experiments. In a third study-group the effects of female condition, age, mating history on female preference function properties will be examined. In a fourth study-group geographic variation in male song characters and female preferences will be examined to study evolutionary patters of song characters and female preferences.
Hungary