Two’s company, three’s a crowd: population density and food availability affect katydid courtship

Animals are predicted to vary their investment in mating behaviors depending on the availability of resources, but there is much to be discovered about the underlying mechanisms. Chloroscirtus discocercus is a Neotropical katydid that makes unusually large investments in mating behaviors, a situation where changing mating behavior according to environmental conditions may be advantageous. In this experiment, varying food availability and population density revealed that changes in the environment influenced the strategies that males used to attract mates. Well-fed high density males called less and moved more, suggesting a switch from acoustic mate attraction to active mate seeking tactics. These findings suggest katydids make use of flexible courtship strategies in response to changing environmental conditions and shed light on how populations might respond to changing environmental conditions.