Robustness of an innate releasing mechanism against degradation of acoustic communication signals in the grasshopper Chorthippus biguttulus

Abstract

Noise is a challenge for animals that use acoustic communication to find a mate. A potent source of noise in animal communication is that arising from other conspecific signals, whose co-occurrence can result in extensive interference—evident as the so called "cocktail-party problem"—that may affect the receiver mechanisms to detect potential mates. We studied grasshopper females to explore how modifications of the song pattern influence song recognition. First, we degraded an attractive model song with random fluctuations of increasing amplitudes out of different frequency bands, and determined "critical degradation levels" at which the females ceased to respond. A masker band with frequencies between 0 and 200 Hz, which covers the frequency range of the natural song envelope, was by 3–5 dB more destructive in hampering signal recognition than frequencies above 200 Hz. As second approach, we applied temporal disturbances such as accentuations or gaps at different positions within the song subunits and observed how response behavior was affected. Accentuations at subunit start increased, whereas those in the midst or at the end of a subunit reduced attractiveness. Gaps at these positions had diverse effects. The results are discussed with respect to neuronal filtering.

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