Local adaptation and sexual selection: a reciprocal transfer experiment with the grasshopper Chorthippus biguttulus

Immigration into locally adapted populations has been suggested, among other potential causes, to maintain genetic variance in fitness necessary for good-genes models. Using a reciprocal transplant experiment we examined whether females prefer native to transferred males in the grasshopper Chorthippus biguttulus. On average, native and transferred males did not differ in their attractiveness, measured as female response rate to playbacks of male acoustic courtship signals. In line with this result, we found no significant effect of transfer on body size, condition, fluctuating asymmetry or song traits. However, the reciprocal transplant experiment showed that environmental conditions did influence body condition and maximum loudness of the calling song, but that the genetic origin of male grasshoppers had no significant effect on any of the analysed traits.