Sedgwick Reserve

01 Jul, 03 AM - 30 Jun, 02 PM

Parasitoid flies in the genus Ormia find their hosts by using the male calling song to locate singing male crickets. Ormia ochracea attacks a variety of cricket species in the genus Gryllus. I am proposing to conduct research in Sedgwick reserve area, on the responses of these flies to synthetic cricket song broadcast through speakers connected to a laptop computer. This setup allows me to precisely manipulate the cricket songs played to simulate different species of crickets found throughout the geographic range of the fly. Flies attracted to the playbacks would be collected and preserved for further laboratory work. Local crickets that serve as potential hosts in the area would also be tape-recorded, collected and preserved for further study. This study is part of a larger ongoing investigation into the evolutionary ecology of field crickets and their phonotactic parastitoids (e.g. NPS research permit SAMO-2001-SCI-0011). The research is interesting from an academic standpoint and the negative biological, scenic, and cultural impacts of the collecting and research are minimal to non-existent.

Visit #2202 @Sedgwick Reserve

Approved

Under Project # 1763 | Research

Geographic plasticity in parasitoid fly response to cricket calling song

faculty - California State University (CSU), Northridge

Reservation Members(s)

David Gray Jul 1, 2003 - Jun 30, 2004 (366 days)
David Gray Jul 1, 2003 - Jun 30, 2004 (366 days)

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