Agonistic displays and the benefits of fighting in the field cricket, Gryllus bimaculatus

Fighting is often composed of discrete agonistic displays. Few studies have partitioned fighting behavior into its component agonistic displays and ev aluated the relationships between the frequency of the displays and the pot ential benefits of fighting, particularly mating success. In this study, we quantified the frequency of male field cricket, Gryllus bimaculatus, agoni stic displays. The displays were quantified under three social environments which varied in the potential benefits of fighting: males with other males only, males with other males and female scents, and males with other males and females. We found that (1) the presence of females elicited an increas e in agonistic displays characteristic of intermediate levels of escalation , (2) female scents did not produce a similar increase in the frequency of agonistic displays, and (3) in the presence of females, the frequency of ag onistic displays was positively correlated with mating success. Aggressive stridulation, and energetically low-cost display, was more strongly associa ted with mating success than were more costly displays. The results are dis cussed in the context of the evolutionary theory of aggression and in the c ontext of cricket mating systems.