Collaborative Research: The causes and consequences of adaptive radiation in animal communication, from individuals to communities

About This Grant

Understanding how new, novel traits arise and persist is challenging because observing this process in real time is rare–it requires being in the right place at the right time. Yet, rapid trait change is one mechanism by which organisms could respond to ongoing environmental challenges, and the origins of novelty are critical to our understanding of how biological variety arises. This project capitalizes on the recent emergence of several new, novel cricket mating songs in the Pacific field cricket. These crickets were recently introduced to Hawaii where the dulcet mating songs produced by males also attract an introduced, lethal eavesdropping fly. Over almost 20 years, the PIs have directly observed the development of several new, quiet song types that allow covert communication, attracting female mates but not the eavesdropping flies. Using a combination of field and lab experiments, the researchers aim to watch trait and behavioral change proceed in real time to learn how novelty arises in animal communication, and to explore the consequences for the community of interacting organisms. Moreover, the project will impact the public understanding of science through 1) collaborative K-16 mentorship programs in Hawaii, 2) podcast episodes that share the research globally, and 3) the production of food items inspired by this research, designed and produced by research participants, and shared with the community to catalyze conversations about animal communication. Evolutionary novelty is readily detectable at macroevolutionary scales, but the microevolutionary processes that result in novelty remain relatively unknown and extremely challenging to study. This project capitalizes on an unprecedented opportunity – the ongoing rapid development of new signals in the incipient phases of radiation – to study how a phenotype that has been stable for millennia diverges from the ancestral to generate a plethora of new signal types. In doing so, the PIs will address fundamental and outstanding questions about the origins of evolutionary novelty, which is critical to biological variety. This integrative project addresses four aims using a combination of longitudinal field studies, controlled experiments conducted in the lab and in field-based mesocosms, and development of new theory. The investigators will 1) characterize signal variety, mechanistic underpinnings, and evolutionary dynamics during an ongoing natural radiation, 2) investigate the underappreciated hypothesis that relaxed receiver preferences facilitate the evolution of novel animal signals, 3) examine the impacts of signal evolution for host-parasite dynamics in a multi-host assemblage and test how alternative host species reciprocally impact signal evolution, and 4) develop theory to examine the causes and consequences of novel signal evolution that are tested in later research aims. The investigators will interrogate an ongoing mating signal radiation at the individual, population, and community levels to understand how novel traits arise, spread, fail, succeed, and impact others. The dynamic and charismatic insect study system provides outstanding opportunities to engage broadly with non-expert audiences. This award is funded jointly by the Division of Integrative Organismal Systems – Behavioral Systems Cluster and the Division of Evolutionary Biology – Evolutionary Processes Cluster. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.