Eunemobius: Pulse Distribution
Notes:
Some crickets show much more variation in their pulse periods than tree crickets. This is the song of Eunemobius carolinus. The variation in pulse periods of the song is about twice that of a tree cricket. The coefficient of variation is even greater given that the average pulse period is shorter for this species. I was interested in the another feature concerning the temporal dynamics of the song, the dependence between pulses. On the right is plotted the relationship between a pulse (N+1) and its preceding pulse (N). There is a significant dependence showing that long pulses tend to be followed by shorter pulses and shorter pulses tend to be followed by longer pulses. It is not known how the dynamics of these short-term rhythms influences female response, but females can be attracted to songs without this correlation between adjacent pulses. The question is, how does a CPG generate this type of variation?