کد مقاله کد نشریه سال انتشار مقاله انگلیسی نسخه تمام متن
2842192 1571025 2013 10 صفحه PDF دانلود رایگان
عنوان انگلیسی مقاله ISI
Processing of acoustic signals in grasshoppers – A neuroethological approach towards female choice
موضوعات مرتبط
علوم زیستی و بیوفناوری بیوشیمی، ژنتیک و زیست شناسی مولکولی فیزیولوژی
پیش نمایش صفحه اول مقاله
Processing of acoustic signals in grasshoppers – A neuroethological approach towards female choice
چکیده انگلیسی

Acoustic communication is a major factor for mate attraction in many grasshopper species and thus plays a vital role in a grasshopper’s life. First of all, the recognition of the species-specific sound patterns is crucial for preventing hybridization with other species, which would result in a drastic fitness loss. In addition, there is evidence that females are choosy with respect to conspecific males and prefer or reject the songs of some individuals, thereby exerting a sexual selection on males. Remarkably, the preferences of females are preserved even under masking noise. To discriminate between the basically similar signals of conspecifics is obviously a challenge for small nervous systems. We therefore ask how the acoustic signals are processed and represented in the grasshopper’s nervous system, to allow for a fine discrimination and assessment of individual songs. The discrimination of similar signals may be impeded not only by signal masking due to external noise sources, but also by intrinsic noise due to the inherent variability of spike trains. Using a spike train metric we could estimate how well, in principle, the songs of different individuals can be discriminated on the basis of neuronal responses, and found a remarkable potential for discrimination performance at the first stage, but not on higher stages of the auditory pathway. Next, we ask which benefits a grasshopper female may earn from being choosy. New results, which revealed correlations between specific song features and the size and immunocompetence of the males, suggest that females may derive from acoustic signals clues about condition and health of the sending male. However, we observed substantial differences between the preference functions of individual females and it may be particularly rewarding to relate the variations in female preferences to individual differences in the responses of identified neurons.


► Grasshoppers are introduced as a model system for acoustic signal processing.
► Signal discrimination and female choice are constrained by spike train variability.
► Male song features reveal quality cues for females.

ناشر
Database: Elsevier - ScienceDirect (ساینس دایرکت)
Journal: Journal of Physiology-Paris - Volume 107, Issues 1–2, January–April 2013, Pages 41–50
نویسندگان
, ,