Balebail Sujay, Sisneros Joseph A
Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
J Exp Biol. 2022 Apr 15;225(8). doi: 10.1242/jeb.243889. Epub 2022 Apr 29.
The plainfin midshipman fish (Porichthys notatus) has long served as a model organism for neuroethology research on acoustic communication and related social behaviors. Type I or 'singing' males produce highly stereotyped, periodic advertisement calls that are the longest known uninterrupted vertebrate vocalizations. Despite the extensive literature on the acoustic behaviour of this species, it remains unclear whether reproductive males signal their quality via their highly energetic, multiharmonic advertisement calls. Here, we recorded the advertisement calls of 22 reproductive type I males at night in a controlled laboratory setting in which males were housed in aquaria maintained at a constant temperature (13.9±0.3°C). The duration of the advertisement calls from type I males was observed to increase from the first call of the night to the middle call after which call duration remained steady until the early morning hours and first light. A strong positive correlation was observed between loudness (sound pressure level and maximum sound pressure level) of the advertisement call and body size (mass and standard length; rs>0.8). In addition, an asymptotic relationship was observed between the harmonic frequencies (f0-f10) of the advertisement calls and male body condition, with harmonic frequencies initially increasing with body condition indices, but then plateauing when body condition measures were high. Taken together, our results suggest that type I male advertisement calls provide reliable honest information about male quality regarding size and body condition. Such condition-dependent information of calling males could potentially be used by receptive females to help facilitate mate choice decisions.
平头光尾鲨（Porichthys notatus）长期以来一直是声学通讯及相关社会行为神经行为学研究的模式生物。I型或“歌唱”型雄性发出高度刻板、周期性的求偶叫声，这是已知最长的不间断脊椎动物发声。尽管有大量关于该物种声学行为的文献，但尚不清楚繁殖期雄性是否通过其高能量、多谐波的求偶叫声来表明自身质量。在此，我们在可控的实验室环境中于夜间记录了22只繁殖期I型雄性的求偶叫声，在该环境中雄性被饲养在恒温（13.9±0.3°C）的水族箱中。观察到I型雄性的求偶叫声时长从夜间的第一声到中间的叫声逐渐增加，此后叫声时长保持稳定直至凌晨和天亮。求偶叫声的响度（声压级和最大声压级）与体型大小（体重和标准体长；rs>0.8）之间存在强正相关。此外，求偶叫声的谐波频率（f0 - f10）与雄性身体状况之间存在渐近关系，谐波频率最初随身体状况指数增加，但当身体状况指标较高时趋于平稳。综合来看，我们的结果表明I型雄性求偶叫声提供了关于雄性体型大小和身体状况的可靠真实信息。处于求偶期的雌性可能会利用求偶雄性的这种与身体状况相关的信息来辅助做出配偶选择决定。
