Abstract
Acoustic signals used by organisms to attract mates are known to attract parasitoid flies. The parasitoid flies lay their eggs inside the host signaler eventually killing the host. We build a host-parasitoid acoustic model to investigate the effect of parasitoid flies on the signaling host’s eco-evolutionary dynamics. We used field crickets as a system to build the framework of the model. We explore how the sex-ratio, as well as, the maximum progeny of the parasitoid females impacts the evolution of the acoustic signal and population density of the signaling hosts. We also explore the stability of the host populations with increase in parasitoid load. We find that up to a threshold value, an increase in parasitoid load leads to a thriving yet silent host population. This emergence of silence as an evolutionary strategy is rapid. Our results show that a drastic increase in the parasitoid load quickly pushes the signaling host population towards instability and extinction.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
