title: Sex-specific interactions of microbial symbioses on cricket dietary selection.
abstract: The nutrients found in prey and nonprey foods, and relative digestibility of these foods, has a major influence on diet selection by omnivorous insects. Many insects have developed symbiotic relationships with gut bacteria to help with extracting nutrition from nonprey diets. Gryllus pennsylvanicus (Burmeister) (Orthoptera: Gryllidae) was assigned to one of two treatment groups, antibiotic-treated and nonantibiotic-treated, and consumption of seeds (nonprey) and eggs (prey) were measured. Male crickets administered antibiotics consumed more seeds and greater seed weight, while antibiotic-fed female crickets consumed fewer seeds and less seed weight, relative to the untreated male and female crickets, respectively. Both male and female antibiotic-treated crickets consumed similar weight of eggs as nonantibiotic-treated male and female crickets, respectively. These results provide evidence that gut symbionts influence diet selection of male and female G. pennsylvanicus differently. This sex-specific dietary selection may be because of the fact that male and female crickets have different nutritional requirements.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology and Microbiology, South Dakota State University, Brookings, SD 57007, USA.
authors.forename: Ryan B
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: Schmid
authors.forename: R Michael
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Lehman
authors.forename: Jonathan G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Lundgren
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001419:Bacteria / Q000187:drug effects*; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005260:Female; D041981:Gastrointestinal Tract / Q000382:microbiology; D006135:Gryllidae / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D064307:Microbiota / Q000187:drug effects; D012639:Seeds; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D013559:Symbiosis