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Cricket mate selection as a spatial discounting phenomenon without learning

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Abstract

Many animals prefer small local benefits to large but temporally or spatially distant benefits, and this preference is termed “temporal discounting” or “spatial discounting.” Although temporal discounting has been studied in many taxa, only a limited number of papers have primarily focused on spatial discounting. Here, a mate-choice experiment was conducted using female house crickets (Acheta domesticus) tasked with selecting between a non-attractive local male and an attractive distant male; training procedures were not performed. The results showed that females that had never heard the calling songs of males exhibited spatial discounting behavior. This finding may be key to determining the fundamental differences between temporal and spatial discounting.

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Acknowledgments

Y. O. received assistance from K. Gohtsu for the data analysis. We thank the anonymous referees for their many helpful comments and suggestions.

Funding

This work was supported in part by grants-in-aid from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports Science and Technology of Japan to E. H. (nos. 22370010 and 26440228) and J. Y. (Nos. 22255004, 26257405, 15H04420 and 22370010). The funders had no role in the study design, data collection or analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. No additional external funding was received for this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Environmental Science, Hokkaido University, Kita 10 Jo Nishi 5 Chome, Sapporo, 060-0810, Japan

    Yusaku Ohkubo & Eisuke Hasegawa

  2. Graduate School of Science and Technology and Department of Mathematical and Systems Engineering, Shizuoka University, 3-5-1 Johoku, Naka-Ku, Hamamatsu, 432-8561, Japan

    Jin Yoshimura

  3. Marine Biosystems Research Center, Chiba University, Uchiura, Kamogawa, Chiba, 299-5502, Japan

    Jin Yoshimura

  4. Department of Environmental and Forest Biology, State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, NY, 13210, USA

    Jin Yoshimura

Authors
  1. Yusaku Ohkubo
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  2. Jin Yoshimura
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  3. Eisuke Hasegawa
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Contributions

Y. O. and E. H. devised the study design, Y. O. conducted the experiments, J. Y. presented the interpretations of the experiments, and Y. O., E. H., and J. Y. wrote the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yusaku Ohkubo.

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Conflict of interests

Y. O., J. Y., and E. H. declare no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All applicable international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed. This article does not include any studies with human participants conducted by any of the authors.

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Ohkubo, Y., Yoshimura, J. & Hasegawa, E. Cricket mate selection as a spatial discounting phenomenon without learning. J Ethol 36, 229–233 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10164-018-0552-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10164-018-0552-1

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