Developmental experience with anthropogenic noise hinders adult mate location in an acoustically signaling invertebrate

Phenotypic plasticity facilitates survival and reproduction in rapidly changing and novel environments. Traffic noise spectrally overlaps with (i.e., masks) the sounds used by many acoustically signaling organisms to locate and secure mates. To determine if pre-reproductive exposure to noise improves adult performance in noisy environments, we reared field crickets (Teleogryllus oceanicus) in one of three noise environments: masking traffic noise, traffic noise from which frequencies that spectrally overlap with the crickets’ song were removed (non-masking), or silence. At reproductive maturity, we tested female mate location ability under one of the same three acoustic conditions. We found that exposure to noise during rearing hindered female location of mates, regardless of the acoustic environment at testing. Females reared in masking noise took 80% longer than females reared in silence to locate a simulated singing male who was <1m away. Impaired mate location ability can be add...表型可塑性（phenotypic plasticity）可帮助生物在快速变化的全新环境中完成存活与繁殖。交通噪声的频谱与众多依靠声学信号定位并获取配偶的声学通讯生物所发出的声波发生频谱重叠，即产生掩蔽效应。为探究生殖前期接触噪声是否能够提升成虫在噪声环境中的表现，我们将田野蟋蟀（Teleogryllus oceanicus）饲养于三种噪声环境中：掩蔽性交通噪声、移除了与蟋蟀鸣声频谱重叠频率的交通噪声（非掩蔽性噪声），以及静音环境。当个体达到生殖成熟阶段时，我们在上述三种声学条件之一下测试雌性个体的配偶定位能力。研究结果显示，无论测试时所处的声学环境如何，饲养期间接触噪声均会损害雌性的配偶定位能力。相较于饲养于静音环境的雌性个体，饲养于掩蔽性噪声环境的雌性个体定位1米范围内模拟鸣唱雄虫的耗时多出80%。受损的配偶定位能力可能会……