@article {86516, title = {Baffling: a condition-dependent alternative mate attraction strategy using self-made tools in tree crickets.}, journal = {Proc Biol Sci}, volume = {287}, year = {2020}, month = {2020 Dec 23}, pages = {20202229}, abstract = {

Intense sexual selection in the form of mate choice can facilitate the evolution of different alternative reproductive strategies, which can be condition-dependent. Tree cricket males produce long-distance acoustic signals which are used by conspecific females for mate localization and mate choice. Our study shows that baffling, an acoustic call amplification strategy employed by male tree crickets using self-made tools, is a classic example of a condition-dependent alternative strategy. We show that though most males can baffle, less preferred males, such as smaller and lower-amplitude callers, predominantly use this alternative strategy. Baffling allows these males to increase their call amplitude and advertisement range, which attracts a higher number of females. Baffling also gives these males a mating benefit because females mate for longer durations with them. Our results suggest that the advantage of baffling in terms of gain in the number of sperm cells transferred while mating is primarily limited to less preferred males, thus maintaining the polymorphism of calling strategies in the population. We summarize that baffling is a condition-dependent strategy used by less preferred tree cricket males to obtain mating benefits.

}, issn = {1471-2954}, doi = {10.1098/rspb.2020.2229}, author = {Deb, Rittik and Modak, Sambita and Balakrishnan, Rohini} } @article {65307, title = {Diversity matters: Effects of density compensation in pollination service during rainfall shift.}, journal = {Ecol Evol}, volume = {9}, year = {2019}, month = {2019 Sep}, pages = {9701-9711}, abstract = {

Extreme weather events are increasing in frequency due to the warming climate. Such extremities can jeopardize ecosystem services and create economic imbalances. Tropical developing countries are predicted to suffer the maximum consequences of such events.We examined the impact of such an event-extreme rainfall fluctuation-on a critical ecosystem service-pollination, which can be intricately linked to a country{\textquoteright}s economy. We performed this study in a dominant peri-urban vegetable hub of an agriculture-dependent developing country.We found that the yield of all pollinator-dependent crops grown across a large spatial scale (district) over multiple years (six) drastically declined with the decrease in rainfall.At the local scale, we found that the dominant crop (representative horticultural crop) had a significant drop in yield during drought, likely due to the production of fewer female flowers and a significant shift in the pollinator community.We found that sp. (one of the four pollinators) was the critical pollinator positively influencing fruit-to-flower ratio (FFR) (an indicator of pollination service) in the normal rainfall year. However, despite its sharp decline during drought, the FFR remained unaffected. We found that during drought, was crucial in maintaining FFR and compensated for the decline of the critical pollinator across 67\% farmlands.Our study demonstrates the role of ecosystem stabilizing mechanism rescuing the crucial ecosystem service during climatic variability over the temporal scale.

}, issn = {2045-7758}, doi = {10.1002/ece3.5500}, author = {Mukherjee, Ronita and Deb, Rittik and Devy, Soubadra M} } @article {68513, title = {Host dietary specialization and neutral assembly shape gut bacterial communities of wild dragonflies.}, journal = {PeerJ}, volume = {7}, year = {2019}, month = {2019}, pages = {e8058}, abstract = {

Host-associated gut microbiota can have significant impacts on host ecology and evolution and are often host-specific. Multiple factors can contribute to such host-specificity: (1) host dietary specialization passively determining microbial colonization, (2) hosts selecting for specific diet-acquired microbiota, or (3) a combination of both. The latter possibilities indicate a functional association and should produce stable microbiota. We tested these alternatives by analyzing the gut bacterial communities of six species of wild adult dragonfly populations collected across several geographic locations. The bacterial community composition was predominantly explained by sampling location, and only secondarily by host identity. To distinguish the role of host dietary specialization and host-imposed selection, we identified prey in the guts of three dragonfly species. Surprisingly, the dragonflies-considered to be generalist predators-consumed distinct prey; and the prey diversity was strongly correlated with the gut bacterial profile. Such host dietary specialization and spatial variation in bacterial communities suggested passive rather than selective underlying processes. Indeed, the abundance and distribution of 72\% of bacterial taxa were consistent with neutral community assembly; and fluorescent in situ hybridization revealed that bacteria only rarely colonized the gut lining. Our results contradict the expectation that host-imposed selection shapes the gut microbiota of most insects, and highlight the importance of joint analyses of diet and gut microbiota of natural host populations.

}, issn = {2167-8359}, doi = {10.7717/peerj.8058}, author = {Deb, Rittik and Nair, Ashwin and Agashe, Deepa} }