Shen Jun-Xian, Feng Albert S, Xu Zhi-Min, Yu Zu-Lin, Arch Victoria S, Yu Xin-Jian, Narins Peter M
State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
Nature. 2008 Jun 12;453(7197):914-6. doi: 10.1038/nature06719. Epub 2008 May 11.
Sound communication plays a vital role in frog reproduction, in which vocal advertisement is generally the domain of males. Females are typically silent, but in a few anuran species they can produce a feeble reciprocal call or rapping sounds during courtship. Males of concave-eared torrent frogs (Odorrana tormota) have demonstrated ultrasonic communication capacity. Although females of O. tormota have an unusually well-developed vocal production system, it is unclear whether or not they produce calls or are only passive partners in a communication system dominated by males. Here we show that before ovulation, gravid females of O. tormota emit calls that are distinct from males' advertisement calls, having higher fundamental frequencies and harmonics and shorter call duration. In the field and in a quiet, darkened indoor arena, these female calls evoke vocalizations and extraordinarily precise positive phonotaxis (a localization error of <1 degrees ), rivalling that of vertebrates with the highest localization acuity (barn owls, dolphins, elephants and humans). The localization accuracy of O. tormota is remarkable in light of their small head size (interaural distance of <1 cm), and suggests an additional selective advantage of high-frequency hearing beyond the ability to avoid masking by low-frequency background noise.
声音交流在青蛙繁殖中起着至关重要的作用，其中发声求偶通常是雄性的行为。雌性通常保持沉默，但在少数蛙类物种中，它们在求偶期间会发出微弱的回应叫声或敲击声。凹耳湍蛙（Odorrana tormota）的雄性已展现出超声波交流能力。尽管凹耳湍蛙的雌性拥有异常发达的发声系统，但尚不清楚它们是否发出叫声，或者在由雄性主导的交流系统中仅仅是被动参与者。在此我们表明，在排卵前，怀孕的凹耳湍蛙雌性会发出与雄性求偶叫声不同的叫声，其基频和谐波更高，叫声持续时间更短。在野外以及安静、黑暗的室内场地中，这些雌性叫声能引发雄性发声以及极其精确的正向趋声行为（定位误差小于1度），可与具有最高定位敏锐度的脊椎动物（仓鸮、海豚、大象和人类）相媲美。鉴于凹耳湍蛙头部尺寸较小（两耳间距小于1厘米），其定位精度非常显著，这表明高频听力除了具有避免被低频背景噪声掩盖的能力之外，还具有额外的选择优势。
