Mechanisms of Fish Sound Production

Abstract

Fishes have evolved multiple mechanisms for sound production, many of which utilize sonic muscles that vibrate the swimbladder or the rubbing of bony elements. Sonic muscles are among the fastest muscles in vertebrates and typically drive the swimbladder to produce one sound cycle per contraction. These muscles may be extrinsic, typically extending from the head to the swimbladder, or intrinsic, likely a more-derived condition, in which muscles attach exclusively to the bladder wall. Recently discovered in Ophidiiform fishes, slow muscles stretch the swimbladder and associated tendons, allowing sound production by rebound (cock and release). In glaucosomatids, fast muscles produce a weak sound followed by a louder one, again produced by rebound, which may reflect an intermediate in the evolution of slow to superfast sonic muscles. Historically, the swimbladder has been modeled as an underwater resonant bubble. We provide evidence for an alternative hypothesis, namely that bladder sounds are driven as a forced rather than a resonant response, thus accounting for broad tuning, rapid damping, and directionality of fish sounds. Cases of sounds that damp slowly, an indication of resonance, are associated with tendons or bones that continue to vibrate and hence drive multiple cycles of swimbladder sound. Stridulation sounds, best studied in catfishes and damselfishes, are produced, respectively, as a series of quick jerks causing rubbing of a ribbed process against a rough surface or rapid jaw closing mediated by a specialized tendon. A cladogram of sonic fishes suggests that fish sound production has arisen independently multiple times.

Wall structure and material properties cause viscous damping of swimbladder sounds in the oyster toadfishOpsanus tau

“…Data suggest that the directional pattern of the fibres determines the material properties rather than them being related to those of pure collagen and elastin. Sounds of the oyster toadfish sounds and of many fishes damp rapidly [8]. Typically following cessation of muscle contraction, oyster toadfish sounds rapidly lose amplitude and waveform period increases with each half cycle [16,17].…”

“…the fish is negatively buoyant but still gains lift from the bladder [4]. In addition to buoyancy functions controlled by gas secretion and reabsorption [5], the swimbladder can be converted to a sound-producing organ by the attachment of muscles [6][7][8][9] or an auditory organ if diverticula or ossicles connect the swimblader to the ear [10][11][12][13].…”

Diversity in Fish Auditory Systems: One of the Riddles of Sensory Biology

“…Fishes show a large variety of mechanisms for producing sounds (sonic organs; for recent reviews see Ladich and Fine, 2006;Ladich and Bass, 2011;Fine and Parmentier, 2015). Sonic organs and sound communication are found in taxa with (mormyrids, catfish, piranhas, some labyrinth fishes) and without accessory hearing structures.…”

Acoustic communication in terrestrial and aquatic vertebrates

“…Bony fishes have evolved perhaps the largest diversity of soundgenerating organs among vertebrates (Ladich and Fine, 2006;Fine and Parmentier, 2015;Parmentier and Fine, 2016). Their mechanisms of sound production are independent of air flow and breathing, because fishes (with a few exceptions, e.g.…”