Male Salamanders Hynobius leechii Respond to Water Vibrations via the Mechanosensory Lateral Line System

Park, Daesik; Lee, Jung-Hyun; Ra, Nam-Yong; Eom, Junho

doi:10.1670/07-285r1.1

Cited by 11 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 2 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…For example, the salamander Hynobius leechii undergoes morphological changes in its mechanosensors during maturation, resulting in a more robust response to the 1Hz waves created by their mating display (Park et al, 2008). And the mottled sculpin (Cottus bairdi) modulates its dependence on different sensory modalities in response to environmental factors that change the reliability of a sensory signal; lake populations of this fish rely chiefly on mechanosensors for prey localization, while river populations utilize other senses, presumably because river currents make the mechanosensory signature of prey harder to detect (Coombs, 1999;Coombs and Grossman, 2006).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developmentally regulated multisensory integration for prey localization in the medicinal leech

Harley

Cienfuegos

Wagenaar

2011

Journal of Experimental Biology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

SUMMARYMedicinal leeches, like many aquatic animals, use water disturbances to localize their prey, so they need to be able to determine if a wave disturbance is created by prey or by another source. Many aquatic predators perform this separation by responding only to those wave frequencies representing their prey. As leechesʼ prey preference changes over the course of their development, we examined their responses at three different life stages. We found that juveniles more readily localize wave sources of lower frequencies (2Hz) than their adult counterparts (8-12Hz), and that adolescents exhibited elements of both juvenile and adult behavior, readily localizing sources of both frequencies. Leeches are known to be able to localize the source of waves through the use of either mechanical or visual information. We separately characterized their ability to localize various frequencies of stimuli using unimodal cues. Within a single modality, the frequency-response curves of adults and juveniles were virtually indistinguishable. However, the differences between the responses for each modality (visual and mechanosensory) were striking. The optimal visual stimulus had a much lower frequency (2Hz) than the optimal mechanical stimulus (12Hz). These frequencies matched, respectively, the juvenile and the adult preferred frequency for multimodally sensed waves. This suggests that, in the multimodal condition, adult behavior is driven more by mechanosensory information and juvenile behavior more by visual. Indeed, when stimuli of the two modalities were placed in conflict with one another, adult leeches, unlike juveniles, were attracted to the mechanical stimulus much more strongly than to the visual stimulus. Supplementary material available online at

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developmentally regulated multisensory integration for prey localization in the medicinal leech

Harley

Cienfuegos

Wagenaar

2011

Journal of Experimental Biology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Thus, our results show that ovulated females respond to water currents using their mechanosensory system. In previous experiments conducted on males, both the physical blockage of water currents and pre-treatment of the salamanders with 1 mM Co 2+ to damage the mechanosensory system significantly attenuated the responses of male salamanders to water currents (Park et al 2008). These results indicate that ovulated female H. leechii could respond to water currents using their mechanosensory systems.…”

mentioning

confidence: 85%

“…33(3): 217-222, 2010 responds to the body undulation of other males (Tanaka 1987, Usuda 1995. A recent study also demonstrated that H. leechii males respond to water currents generated by other males using their mechanosensory system (Park et al 2008, Kim et al 2009). …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In each condition, females were tested randomly with and without a water current blocker placed between them and the model generating water currents to determine whether the females respond to water currents using their mechanosensory system. In a previous study (Park et al 2008), the blockage of water currents allowed for the successful determination of whether or not the mechanosensory system plays a role in male salamanders' responses to water currents. We determined the order of the experiments (with and without the blocker) by flipping a coin, and the females had at least a 2-hour rest period between the two experiments.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The model was controlled by a transparent fishing line connected to a hand-made vibration generator. In the experiments, we employed 1-Hz water currents because this frequency had been successfully used in previous experiments with males (Park et al 2008). Additionally, we placed a wire circle (15 cm in diameter) centered on the cloaca of the model salamander at 5 cm above the water surface in order to determine whether females ap-…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Ovulated female salamander (Hynobius leechii) respond to water currents

Kim¹,

Lee²,

Ra³

et al. 2010

J. Ecol. Environ.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

To determine whether or not the female Korean salamander, Hynobius leechii, responds to water currents and, if so, whether those responses depend on their reproductive conditions, we evaluated the responses of ovulated and oviposited females to 1-Hz water currents generated by a model salamander with and without the placement of a transparent water current blocker between the model and the test females. The ovulated females responded to water currents by turning their heads toward, approaching, and/or making physical contact with the model. When the water current blocker was in place, the number of salamanders that approached the model was reduced significantly. The approaching and touching responses of ovulated females were greater than those of oviposited females, whereas the other measurements evidenced no differences. None of the responses of the oviposited females to water currents was affected by the presence of the blocker. Our results indicate that female H. leechii responds to water currents via a mechanosensory system. Key words: body undulation, courtship behavior, mechanosensory system, oviposition, ovulation, water current INTRODUCTIONIn many animal taxa, the mechanosensory system performs a critical function in a variety of activities, including conspecific and individual recognition, alarm response, foraging, and reproduction (Vogel and Bleckmann 1997, Baker and Montgomery 1999, Hill 2001, Quirici and Costa 2007, McHenry et al. 2009). The functions of the mechanosensory system in reproduction have been assessed in different animal species, including rotifers (Joanidopoulos and Marwan 1999), spiders (Maklakov et al. 2003, Quirici andCosta 2007) and salmon (Satou et al. 1994a); such studies demonstrated that a healthy mechanosensory system is crucial for successful reproduction. Urodela species possess a well-developed mechanosensory system (Lannoo 1987, Lee andPark 2008b), the functions of which in foraging and predation have been relatively well-studied (Fritzsch and Neary 1998). However, the reproductive functions of this system have yet to be wellestablished.Unlike the majority of other salamanders, salamanders in the Hynobiidae fertilize eggs externally (Salthe 1967). When a Hynobius male and female encounter one another, the male salamander performs body undulations when its snouts are in contact with the female's skin (Tanaka 1986, Park and Park 2000, Kim et al. 2009). Body undulation is defined as an intermittent undulation of the body trunk and tail, which generates water currents. Male H. takedai respond to surface water currents generated by a glass rod, and H. nigrescens Field Biol. 33(3): 217-222, 2010 responds to the body undulation of other males (Tanaka 1987, Usuda 1995. A recent study also demonstrated that H. leechii males respond to water currents generated by other males using their mechanosensory system (Park et al. 2008, Kim et al. 2009).Previous studies have demonstrated that when Hynobius females are nearing oviposition, they approach a tree twig or rocks, rub their cloa...

show abstract

Aquatic Feeding in Lissamphibia

Heiss

Lemell²

2023

Convergent Evolution

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Male Salamanders Hynobius leechii Respond to Water Vibrations via the Mechanosensory Lateral Line System

Cited by 11 publications

References 2 publications

Developmentally regulated multisensory integration for prey localization in the medicinal leech

Developmentally regulated multisensory integration for prey localization in the medicinal leech

Ovulated female salamander (Hynobius leechii) respond to water currents

Aquatic Feeding in Lissamphibia

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About