Baffling: A cheater strategy using self-made tools in tree crickets

Intense sexual selection in the form of mate choice can facilitate the evolution of different alternative reproductive strategies. These strategies can be condition-dependent, wherein genetically similar individuals express the strategy based on their condition. Our study shows that baffling, a mate attraction strategy using self-made acoustic amplifiers, employed by male tree crickets, is a classic example of a condition-dependent alternative strategy. We show that less preferred males, who are smaller or produce less loud calls, predominantly use this alternative strategy. Baffling allows these males to increase their call loudness and advertisement range, and attract a higher number of mates. Baffling also allows these males to deceive females into mating for longer durations with them. Our results suggest that the advantage of baffling in terms of sperm transfer is primarily limited to less preferred males, thus maintaining the polymorphism of calling strategies in the population. Impact statement This study shows that less preferred tree cricket males use an alternative signaling strategy to call louder, thus attracting and mating with otherwise choosy females using deception.