Heightened perception of competition hastens courtship

When animals use costly labile display or signal traits to display to the opposite sex, they face complex decisions regarding the degree and timing of their investment in separate instances of trait expression. Such decisions may be informed by not only the focal individual’s condition (or pool of available resources), but also aspects of the social environment, such as perceptions of same-sex competition or the quality of available mates. However, the relative importance of these factors to investment decisions remains unclear. Here we use manipulations of condition (through dietary nutrition), recent social environment (exposure to a silenced male, non-silenced male, female, or isolation), and female mating history (single- or multiple-male) to test how quickly male decorated crickets (Gryllodes sigillatus) decide to begin courting an available female. We find that males that were previously housed with non-silenced males started courting the female earlier than other males. Females o...当动物借助代价高昂且易变的展示行为（display）或信号性状（signal trait）向异性传递信号时，它们需要针对性状表达的不同场景，在投入程度与时机上做出复杂决策。这类决策不仅取决于目标个体的生理状态（或可用资源储备），还会受到社会环境因素的影响，例如对同性竞争的感知、潜在配偶的质量等。然而，上述两类因素对性状投入决策的相对重要性仍未明确。本研究通过操控雄性的生理状态（通过膳食营养调控）、近期社会环境（分别暴露于鸣声被沉默的雄性、鸣声未被沉默的雄性、雌性，或单独隔离）以及雌性的交配经历（单次交配或多次交配），以探究装饰蟋蟀（Gryllodes sigillatus）雄性决定向可用雌性求偶的速度。我们发现，此前与未被沉默的雄性共同饲养的雄性，其求偶起始时间早于其他组别雄性。雌性……