By assessing the sexual signals produced by conspecifics, individuals can make informed decisions on the best choice of mate, which can lead to reproductive fitness benefits. However, these communication systems are often vulnerable to disruption by conflicting with stimuli present in the environment. Anthropogenic noise may act as one such disruptive stimulus, leading to inefficient mate choice decisions and, thus, reductions to an animal’s fitness. In this study, the mate choice behaviors of female Gryllus bimaculatus were tested when presented with artificial male courtship songs of differing “quality” under different acoustic conditions. In ambient noise conditions, females significantly preferred mates paired with higher-quality songs, indicated by increased mating rates and reduced latency to mate. However, this mate selection pattern was disrupted in both traffic and white noise conditions. Additionally, “high-quality” courtship songs had an increased mounting latency in traffic and white noise conditions, when compared to ambient noise conditions. Making nonoptimal mating decisions, such as the ones seen here, can lead to deleterious fitness consequences, alter population dynamics, and weaken sexual selection, unless individuals adapt to cope with anthropogenic interference.

中文翻译：

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人为噪声干扰雌性Gryllus bimaculatus的配偶选择行为

通过评估特定物种产生的性信号，个人可以就最佳的配偶选择做出明智的决定，这可以带来生殖健康的好处。但是，这些通信系统通常容易受到与环境中存在的刺激冲突的干扰。人为噪声可能是一种此类破坏性刺激，导致无效的配偶选择决策，从而降低了动物的适应性。在这项研究中，雌性Gryllus bimaculatus的择偶行为当在不同的声学条件下播放带有不同“质量”的人造男性求爱歌曲时进行测试。在环境噪音条件下，雌性非常喜欢与高品质歌曲配对的伴侣，这表现为增加的交配率和减少的交配潜伏期。但是，这种配偶选择模式在交通和白噪声条件下均​​受到干扰。此外，与环境噪声条件相比，“高质量”求爱歌曲在交通和白噪声条件下的安装延迟增加。做出不理想的交配决定（如此处所示）会导致有害的适应性后果，改变种群动态并削弱性选择，除非个人适应应付人为干扰。