The signal in noise: acoustic information for soundscape orientation in two North American tree frogs

Vélez, Alejandro; Gordon, Noah M.; Bee, Mark A.

doi:10.1093/beheco/arx044

Cited by 10 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 52 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Anurans elicit behavioral responses to heterospecific signals (Gerhardt 2001, Both and Grant 2012, Vélez et al 2017) and use cues gathered inadvertently from heterospecifics to make decisions such as finding suitable breeding sites (Slabbekoorn and Bouton 2008, Buxton et al 2015, Buxton and Sperry 2016, Vélez et al 2017) and engaging in anti‐predator behaviors (Phelps et al 2006). Eavesdropping on species with similar acoustic signals can be especially common in anurans, as signal characteristics should approximate the tuning of the peripheral auditory system (Gerhardt 1994).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the literature on the influence of heterospecific information use through acoustics on the assembly of amphibian assemblages is scarce, with most examples coming from birds (Forsman et al 2009). Anurans elicit behavioral responses to heterospecific signals (Gerhardt 2001, Both and Grant 2012, Vélez et al 2017) and use cues gathered inadvertently from heterospecifics to make decisions such as finding suitable breeding sites (Slabbekoorn & Bouton 2008, Buxton et al 2015, Buxton and Sperry 2016, Vélez et al 2017) and engaging in anti-predator behaviors (Phelps et al 2006).…”

Section: Accepted Articlementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Revisiting the drivers of acoustic similarities in tropical anuran assemblages

Sugai

Llusia

Siqueira

et al. 2021

Ecology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Acoustic signaling is key in mediating mate-choice, which directly impacts individual fitness.Because background noise and habitat structure can impair signal transmission, the acoustic space of mixed-species assemblages has long been hypothesized to reflect selective pressures against signal interference and degradation. However, other potential drivers that received far less attention can drive similar outputs on the acoustic space. Phylogenetic niche conservatism and allometric constraints may also modulate species acoustic features, and the acoustic space of communities could be a side-effect of ecological assembly processes involving other traits (e.g. environmental filtering).Additionally, the acoustic space can also reflect the sorting of species relying on public information through extended communication networks. Using an integrative approach, we revisit the potential drivers of the acoustic space by addressing the distribution of acoustic traits, body size, and phylogenetic relatedness in tropical anuran assemblages across gradients of environmental heterogeneity in the Pantanal wetlands. We found the overall acoustic space to be aggregated compared with null expectations, even when accounting for confounding effects of body size. Across assemblages, acoustic and phylogenetic differences were positively related, while acoustic and body size similarities were negatively related, although to a minor extent. We suggest that acoustic partitioning, acoustic adaptation, and allometric constraints play a minor role in shaping the acoustic output of tropical anuran assemblages and that phylogenetic niche conservatism and public information use would influence between-assemblage variation. Our findings highlight an overlooked multivariate nature of the acoustic dimension and underscore the importance of including the ecological context of communities to understand drivers of the acoustic space.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Accepted Articlementioning

confidence: 99%

Revisiting the drivers of acoustic similarities in tropical anuran assemblages

Sugai

Llusia

Siqueira

et al. 2021

Ecology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In this sham condition, the masker was presented alone without the target signal. Responses to the masker were not entirely unexpected given that some gravid females will, in the absence of a target signal with conspecific call properties, respond to other types of sounds with the appropriate spectral content, including bandlimited noise (Bee and Swanson, 2007; Vélez et al 2017), unmodulated tones (Kuczynski et al 2010), and signals with slower or faster pulse rate typical of a heterospecific male (Gerhardt, 2001; Gerhardt and Doherty, 1988). It was, therefore, desirable to exclude highly motivated subjects that responded to maskers to obtain accurate pulse number thresholds using the adaptive tracking procedure.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Informational Masking Constrains Vocal Communication in Nonhuman Animals

Gupta

Bee

2022

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Noisy social environments constrain human speech intelligibility in two primary ways: spectro-temporal overlap between signals and noise reduces speech audibility (energetic masking) and noise interferes with processing the informative features of otherwise audible speech (informational masking). To date, informational masking has not been investigated in studies of vocal communication in nonhuman animals, even though their behavioral decisions frequently depend on extracting information from vocalizations in noisy aggregations. In this study of a treefrog, in which females chose mates in noisy breeding choruses, we investigated whether informational masking can disrupt the processing of signal information in the contexts of species recognition and sexual selection. We observed significant reductions in response to the vocalizations of a potential mate when they were broadcast concurrently with other biologically relevant sounds designed to reduce or eliminate energetic masking. These effects were more pronounced when competing sounds were present in a particularly salient frequency range for processing vocalizations. Among responsive subjects, however, performance in signal recognition and discrimination tasks remained largely unchanged. These results confirm that informational masking is a general communication problem among humans and other animals and suggest it may be a crucial yet understudied source of selection shaping the evolution of animal communication.

show abstract

“…To illustrate this concept, we use some examples from some of the main hypotheses in the field. For effective communication, a high signal-to-noise ratio ensures improved detection by the receiver, thus benefiting the signaler (Endler, 1992;Wollerman and Wiley, 2002;Hart et al, 2015;Vélez et al, 2017). However, signal efficacy is reduced by masking interference from competing sound sources, such as other nearby signalers (Schwartz and Wells, 1983;Narins, 1992;Greenfield, 1994;Aubin and Jouventin, 1998;Bee and Micheyl, 2008;Balakrishnan et al, 2014).…”

Section: Conceptual Foundationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Community Bioacoustics: Studying Acoustic Community Structure for Ecological and Conservation Insights

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The diversity of animal acoustic signals has evolved due to multiple ecological processes, both biotic and abiotic. At the level of communities of signaling animals, these processes may lead to diverse outcomes, including partitioning of acoustic signals along multiple axes (divergent signal parameters, signaling locations, and timing). Acoustic data provides information on the organization, diversity and dynamics of an acoustic community, and thus enables study of ecological change and turnover in a non-intrusive way. In this review, we lay out how community bioacoustics (the study of acoustic community structure and dynamics), has value in ecological monitoring and conservation of diverse landscapes and taxa. First, we review the concepts of signal space, signal partitioning and their effects on the structure of acoustic communities. Next, we highlight how spatiotemporal ecological change is reflected in acoustic community structure, and the potential this presents in monitoring and conservation. As passive acoustic monitoring gains popularity worldwide, we propose that the analytical framework of community bioacoustics has promise in studying the response of entire suites of species (from insects to large whales) to rapid anthropogenic change.

show abstract

The signal in noise: acoustic information for soundscape orientation in two North American tree frogs

Cited by 10 publications

References 52 publications

Revisiting the drivers of acoustic similarities in tropical anuran assemblages

Revisiting the drivers of acoustic similarities in tropical anuran assemblages

Informational Masking Constrains Vocal Communication in Nonhuman Animals

Community Bioacoustics: Studying Acoustic Community Structure for Ecological and Conservation Insights

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About