Evolutionary Coexistence Among Hawaiian Crickets

In September 2023, I completed my Master’s Thesis at the University of St Andrews under the supervision of Alexander Stewart. This unpublished work considers a modern example of convergent evolution on the Hawaiian islands where field crickets (Teleogryllus oceanicus) adopt a “flatwing” mutation, which inhibits the ability for male flies to attract females, but has the advantage of evading predation by local flies. Despite extensive measurements of local cricket populations, no rigorous investigation of the tradeoffs between female attraction and fly evasion existed. This work developed a novel ecological-genetic model that predicts conditions for the mutant and non-mutant crickets to coexist with the flies given certain basic parameters. This model therefore hypothesizes bounds on biological parameters within the Hawaiian cricket-fly system and offers a means to explore other enviroments where cricket-fly coexistence is possible.