The chirp of the cricket may soon be used to monitor their species diversity. Dr. Ranjana Jaiswara, a Department of Science and Technology (DST) Inspire Faculty Fellow at the University is working to establish a field crickets acoustic-signal library which can be used as a non-invasive tool in species diversity estimation and monitoring.

“The library will be a digital ones and can be used through mobile phone application for automated species recognition and discovery as well as documentation of new species of crickets from India,” she said.

Jaiswara explained that currently morphology-based traditional taxonomy has gone a long way to recognise and establish species diversity.

“But it is often not sufficient in delimiting cryptic species-- a group of two or more morphologically indistinguishable species (hidden under one species) or individuals of the same species expressing diverse morphological features (which are often classified into multiple species).

“Therefore, identification solely based on morphological features leads to underestimation or overestimation of species diversity,” she added.

Dr. Jaiswara’s research as a DST-INSPIRE Faculty addresses the problem of cryptic species by using advanced tools in an integrative frame in delineating species boundaries.

These tools include acoustic signals, DNA sequences, and phonotactic behavioural data in studying species diversity.

She uses field crickets as the model organism. In her research published in Journal of Zoological Systematics and Evolutionary Research, she has shown that species-specific bioacoustics signals are a highly efficient and reliable tool in marking species boundaries and it can be used to get an accurate estimate of species richness and diversity estimate of any geographical area.