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opencc-zeroDec 2019View details →

Phylogenomic analysis sheds light on the evolutionary pathways towards acoustic communication in Orthoptera

Acoustic communication is enabled by the evolution of specialised hearing and sound producing organs. In this study, we performed a large-scale macroevolutionary study to understand how both hearing and sound production evolved and affected diversification in the insect order Orthoptera, which includes many familiar singing insects, such as crickets, katydids, and grasshoppers. Using phylogenomic data, we firmly establish phylogenetic relationships among the major lineages and divergence time estimates within Orthoptera, as well as the lineage-specific and dynamic patterns of evolution for hearing and sound producing organs. In the suborder Ensifera, we infer that forewing-based stridulation and tibial tympanal ears co-evolved, but in the suborder Caelifera, abdominal tympanal ears first evolved in a non-sexual context, and later co-opted for sexual signalling when sound producing organs evolved. However, we find little evidence that the evolution of hearing and sound producing organs increased diversification rates in those lineages with known acoustic communication.

opencc-zeroDec 2014View details →

Data from: Phenotypic variation and covariation indicate high evolvability of acoustic communication in crickets

Studying the genetic architecture of sexual traits provides insight into the rate and direction at which traits can respond to selection. Traits associated with few loci and limited genetic and phenotypic constraints tend to evolve at high rates typically observed for secondary sexual characters. Here, we examined the genetic architecture of song traits and female song preferences in the field crickets Gryllus rubens and G. texensis. Song and preference data were collected from both species and interspecific F1 and F2 hybrids. We first analysed phenotypic variation to examine interspecific differentiation and trait distributions in parental and hybrid generations. Then, the relative contribution of additive and additive-dominance variation was estimated. Finally, phenotypic variance-covariance (P) matrices were estimated to evaluate the multivariate phenotype available for selection. Song traits and preferences had unimodal trait distributions and hybrid offspring were intermediate with respect to the parents. We uncovered additive and dominance variation in song traits and preferences. For two song traits we found evidence for X-linked inheritance. On one hand, the observed genetic architecture does not suggest rapid divergence, although sex-linkage may have allowed for somewhat higher evolutionary rates. On the other hand, P matrices revealed that multivariate variation in song traits aligned with major dimensions in song preferences, suggesting a strong selection response. We also found strong covariance between the main traits that are sexually selected and traits that are not directly selected by females, providing an explanation for the striking multivariate divergence in male calling songs despite limited divergence in female preferences.

opencc-zeroDec 2015View details →

Data from: Acoustic communication in zebra finches signals when mates will take turns with parental duties

Bi-parental care may involve both cooperation and conflict between parents. Parents adjust their workload to that of their partner and this ability is likely to affect reproductive success. Whether mates communicate, either to resolve the sexual conflict or to coordinate their joint investment in parental care is a largely unaddressed question which we examined by recording wild zebra finches at the nest during incubation. Zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) partners produce vocal exchanges at the nest that can be characterized as duets. Some duets end in nest-relief (when birds take turns incubating and foraging) but some do not (when the foraging mate vocally interacts with its incubating partner by coming inside or in the vicinity of the nest). Our data indicate that the structure of the duet predicted its outcome (relief or not), with a parent calling differently before leaving or staying in the nest by modifying its vocal repertoire as well as the acoustic structure of one particular call type which is typically used inside the nest. Zebra finch partners may thus exchange on the time to take turns with parental duties. Our results show that acoustic communication between partners might be of importance in the organization of parental care and could help in understanding sexual conflict resolution or cooperation phenomena in future studies.

opencc-zeroDec 2015View details →

Data from: Singing whales generate high levels of particle motion: implications for acoustic communication and hearing?

Acoustic signals are fundamental to animal communication, and cetaceans are often considered bioacoustic specialists. Nearly all studies of their acoustic communication focus on sound pressure measurements, overlooking the particle motion components of their communication signals. Here we characterized the levels of acoustic particle velocity (and pressure) of song produced by humpback whales. We demonstrate that whales generate acoustic fields that include significant particle velocity components that are detectable over relatively long distances sufficient to play a role in acoustic communication. We show that these signals attenuate predictably in a manner similar to pressure and that direct particle velocity measurements can provide bearings to singing whales. Whales could potentially use such information to determine the distance of signalling animals. Additionally, the vibratory nature of particle velocity may stimulate bone conduction, a hearing modality found in other low-frequency specialized mammals, offering a parsimonious mechanism of acoustic energy transduction into the massive ossicles of whale ears. With substantial concerns regarding the effects of increasing anthropogenic ocean noise and major uncertainties surrounding mysticete hearing, these results highlight both an unexplored pathway that may be available for whale acoustic communication and the need to better understand the biological role of acoustic particle motion.

Figure 3 from: Hershberger WL (2021) Substrate-borne vibrations used during acoustic communication and the existence of courtship songs in some species of the genus Anaxipha (Saussure) (Orthoptera: Trigonidiidae: Trigonidiinae). Journal of Orthoptera Research 30(2): 185-191. https://doi.org/10.3897/jor.30.70990

Figure 3 Mean number of drumming bouts performed during different portions of calling songs in A. tinnulacita showing standard error of the means. The occurrence of drumming was variable from one calling song to the next. Consistently, more drumming bouts were given during the first 40 percent and the last 20 percent of the major echemes of calling song (n = 14 songs, 1218 drumming bouts total).

Figure 2 from: Hershberger WL (2021) Substrate-borne vibrations used during acoustic communication and the existence of courtship songs in some species of the genus Anaxipha (Saussure) (Orthoptera: Trigonidiidae: Trigonidiinae). Journal of Orthoptera Research 30(2): 185-191. https://doi.org/10.3897/jor.30.70990

Figure 2 Percent usage of different length drumming bouts during calling songs in A. tinnulacita. (n = 24 songs; 1,503 tapping bouts; error bars are ±SD of the means).

Figure 6 from: Hershberger WL (2021) Substrate-borne vibrations used during acoustic communication and the existence of courtship songs in some species of the genus Anaxipha (Saussure) (Orthoptera: Trigonidiidae: Trigonidiinae). Journal of Orthoptera Research 30(2): 185-191. https://doi.org/10.3897/jor.30.70990

Figure 6 Audio spectrograms of courtship songs of four species of Anaxipha showing drumming bouts (below 2 kHz) and tegminal sounds (above 4 kHz). Low frequencies (below 2 kHz) were enhanced to better show the low-frequency drumming bouts. A.Anaxipha exigua, dark areas below 1 kHz are drumming bouts; B.Anaxipha tinnulacita, fine, dark lines after 1:05 (min:sec) are the drumming bouts; C.Anaxipha tinnulenta, the dark areas after 5 sec and below 2 kHz are the drumming bouts; D.Anaxipha thomasi, the compact dark areas below 2 kHz are the drumming bouts. The clustered, individual taps between drumming bouts are sounds made by the insect jumping repeatedly and rapidly between echemes during the courtship display. Note that the time scales for each courtship song are different, as each species courtship song length is different and variable.

Figure 5 from: Hershberger WL (2021) Substrate-borne vibrations used during acoustic communication and the existence of courtship songs in some species of the genus Anaxipha (Saussure) (Orthoptera: Trigonidiidae: Trigonidiinae). Journal of Orthoptera Research 30(2): 185-191. https://doi.org/10.3897/jor.30.70990

Figure 5 Audio spectrograms of three seconds of calling and courtship songs of the four species of Anaxipha. A1.A. exigua calling song; A2.A. exigua courtship song; B1.A. tinnulacita calling song; B2.A. tinnulacita courtship song; C1.A. tinnulenta calling song; C2.A. tinnulenta courtship song; D1.A. thomasi calling song; D2.A. thomasi courtship song. Compared to calling song, the individual syllables of courtship songs are shorter, patterned differently, with more sounds associated with wing-opening movements (wing-dragging).

Figure 4 from: Hershberger WL (2021) Substrate-borne vibrations used during acoustic communication and the existence of courtship songs in some species of the genus Anaxipha (Saussure) (Orthoptera: Trigonidiidae: Trigonidiinae). Journal of Orthoptera Research 30(2): 185-191. https://doi.org/10.3897/jor.30.70990

Figure 4 Oscillograms of the calling and courtship songs of the four species of Anaxipha. A1.A. exigua calling song; A2.A. exigua courtship song; B1.A. tinnulacita calling song; B2.A. tinnulacita courtship song; C1.A. tinnulenta calling song; C2.A. tinnulenta courtship song; D1.A. thomasi calling song; D2.A. thomasi courtship song. All audio files were normalized to -3 dBFS for comparison. Y-axis represents amplitude and is analogous to dBFS (full scale).

Figure 7 from: Hershberger WL (2021) Substrate-borne vibrations used during acoustic communication and the existence of courtship songs in some species of the genus Anaxipha (Saussure) (Orthoptera: Trigonidiidae: Trigonidiinae). Journal of Orthoptera Research 30(2): 185-191. https://doi.org/10.3897/jor.30.70990

Figure 7 Examination of the means of the average power of the combined first two and the combined last two taps of drumming bouts in courtship songs ±SD. In nearly all instances, tapping becomes louder during an individual drumming bout within courtship songs across all four species. Numbers closer to the abscissas are louder. a = average of the first two taps, b = average of the last two taps in bouts of four taps or more. * = t-tests comparing the means of first two taps to the last two taps, within each species, showed the p-values were all < 0.0001, showing that the taps are significantly louder at the end of drumming bouts (A. exigua n = 5 songs, 45 drumming bouts; A. tinnulacita n = 4, 29; A. tinnulenta n = 4, 98; A. thomasi n = 5, 75).

Figure 1 from: Hershberger WL (2021) Substrate-borne vibrations used during acoustic communication and the existence of courtship songs in some species of the genus Anaxipha (Saussure) (Orthoptera: Trigonidiidae: Trigonidiinae). Journal of Orthoptera Research 30(2): 185-191. https://doi.org/10.3897/jor.30.70990

Figure 1 A typical drumming bout showing the low-frequency and brief nature of these sounds. The figure is the selection of a drumming bout from a courtship song of A. thomasi showing the selection window spanning from the middle of the first tap to the middle of the last tap. This tapping bout consists of 12 taps.

Fig. 4 a, b in Hyperdiverse songs, duetting, and the roles of intra- and intersexual selection in the acoustic communication of the genus Eurycorypha (Orthoptera: Tettigonioidea, Phaneropterinae)

Fig. 4 a, b Oscillograms of male calling songs, overview (10 s sections)

Fig. 6 in Hyperdiverse songs, duetting, and the roles of intra- and intersexual selection in the acoustic communication of the genus Eurycorypha (Orthoptera: Tettigonioidea, Phaneropterinae)

Fig. 6 Oscillograms of malefemale duets, overview (10 s sections)

Fig. 1 in Hyperdiverse songs, duetting, and the roles of intra- and intersexual selection in the acoustic communication of the genus Eurycorypha (Orthoptera: Tettigonioidea, Phaneropterinae)

Fig. 1 Habitus of a male and b female Eurycorypha curviflava

Fig. 5 in Hyperdiverse songs, duetting, and the roles of intra- and intersexual selection in the acoustic communication of the genus Eurycorypha (Orthoptera: Tettigonioidea, Phaneropterinae)

Fig. 5 Oscillograms of male calling songs, details (1.5 s sections)

opencc-zeroMay 2023View details →

The impact of parasitic infection on acoustic communication and mate choice in two torrent frogs with nonlinear vocalization

For frogs with linear vocalization, Hamilton and Zuk's hypothesis indicated that parasites adversely affect male sex characters and parasite infection can result in sexual signals that are less intense or conspicuous than in healthy individuals, which causes females to prefer unparasitized over parasitized males. In order to investigate the effects of parasite infection on vocal characteristics and mate choice in frogs, which can emit nonlinear phenomena calls (NLP). The calls of the two species of torrent male frog, namely the concave-eared torrent frog (Odorrana tormota) and the large odorous frog (Odorrana graminea), were recorded, and several vocal parameters (calling duration, calling rate, average fundamental frequency, NLP duration and NLP content) and parasite intensity were analyzed in detail. The results revealed a negative relationship between calling rate and parasite intensity and a positive relationship between NLP content and parasite intensity. Furthermore, the effects of parasite intensity on amplectant showed that parasite intensity from amplexed pairs was higher than that of solo males in the vicinity of the amplexus. This might be because both male frogs with higher parasite intensity can emit calls with higher NLP content, and it has been shown that females have a preference for high NLP content. This study confirms that parasites can influence the NLP content in both torrent frog' calls, which in turn affects the host' mate choice. The current study suggests effects of parasite infection on mate choice in host frogs might be influenced by vocal manner, which provides new insight into the parasite-host relationship.