Whispering to the deaf: communication by a frog without external vocal sac or tympanum in noisy environments.

Atelopus franciscus is a diurnal bufonid frog that lives in South-American tropical rain forests. As in many other frogs, males produce calls to defend their territories and attract females. However, this species is a so-called "earless" frog lacking an external tympanum and is thus anatom...

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Autores principales:	Renaud Boistel, Thierry Aubin, Peter Cloetens, Max Langer, Brigitte Gillet, Patrice Josset, Nicolas Pollet, Anthony Herrel
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2011
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/dc3e63c846434c04b683c3611fd1b025
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:dc3e63c846434c04b683c3611fd1b0252021-11-18T06:50:20ZWhispering to the deaf: communication by a frog without external vocal sac or tympanum in noisy environments.1932-620310.1371/journal.pone.0022080https://doaj.org/article/dc3e63c846434c04b683c3611fd1b0252011-01-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmid/21779377/pdf/?tool=EBIhttps://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203Atelopus franciscus is a diurnal bufonid frog that lives in South-American tropical rain forests. As in many other frogs, males produce calls to defend their territories and attract females. However, this species is a so-called "earless" frog lacking an external tympanum and is thus anatomically deaf. Moreover, A. franciscus has no external vocal sac and lives in a sound constraining environment along river banks where it competes with other calling frogs. Despite these constraints, male A. franciscus reply acoustically to the calls of conspecifics in the field. To resolve this apparent paradox, we studied the vocal apparatus and middle-ear, analysed signal content of the calls, examined sound and signal content propagation in its natural habitat, and performed playback experiments. We show that A. franciscus males can produce only low intensity calls that propagate a short distance (<8 m) as a result of the lack of an external vocal sac. The species-specific coding of the signal is based on the pulse duration, providing a simple coding that is efficient as it allows discrimination from calls of sympatric frogs. Moreover, the signal is redundant and consequently adapted to noisy environments. As such a coding system can be efficient only at short-range, territory holders established themselves at short distances from each other. Finally, we show that the middle-ear of A. franciscus does not present any particular adaptations to compensate for the lack of an external tympanum, suggesting the existence of extra-tympanic pathways for sound propagation.Renaud BoistelThierry AubinPeter CloetensMax LangerBrigitte GilletPatrice JossetNicolas PolletAnthony HerrelPublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleMedicineRScienceQENPLoS ONE, Vol 6, Iss 7, p e22080 (2011)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Renaud Boistel Thierry Aubin Peter Cloetens Max Langer Brigitte Gillet Patrice Josset Nicolas Pollet Anthony Herrel Whispering to the deaf: communication by a frog without external vocal sac or tympanum in noisy environments.
description	Atelopus franciscus is a diurnal bufonid frog that lives in South-American tropical rain forests. As in many other frogs, males produce calls to defend their territories and attract females. However, this species is a so-called "earless" frog lacking an external tympanum and is thus anatomically deaf. Moreover, A. franciscus has no external vocal sac and lives in a sound constraining environment along river banks where it competes with other calling frogs. Despite these constraints, male A. franciscus reply acoustically to the calls of conspecifics in the field. To resolve this apparent paradox, we studied the vocal apparatus and middle-ear, analysed signal content of the calls, examined sound and signal content propagation in its natural habitat, and performed playback experiments. We show that A. franciscus males can produce only low intensity calls that propagate a short distance (<8 m) as a result of the lack of an external vocal sac. The species-specific coding of the signal is based on the pulse duration, providing a simple coding that is efficient as it allows discrimination from calls of sympatric frogs. Moreover, the signal is redundant and consequently adapted to noisy environments. As such a coding system can be efficient only at short-range, territory holders established themselves at short distances from each other. Finally, we show that the middle-ear of A. franciscus does not present any particular adaptations to compensate for the lack of an external tympanum, suggesting the existence of extra-tympanic pathways for sound propagation.
format	article
author	Renaud Boistel Thierry Aubin Peter Cloetens Max Langer Brigitte Gillet Patrice Josset Nicolas Pollet Anthony Herrel
author_facet	Renaud Boistel Thierry Aubin Peter Cloetens Max Langer Brigitte Gillet Patrice Josset Nicolas Pollet Anthony Herrel
author_sort	Renaud Boistel
title	Whispering to the deaf: communication by a frog without external vocal sac or tympanum in noisy environments.
title_short	Whispering to the deaf: communication by a frog without external vocal sac or tympanum in noisy environments.
title_full	Whispering to the deaf: communication by a frog without external vocal sac or tympanum in noisy environments.
title_fullStr	Whispering to the deaf: communication by a frog without external vocal sac or tympanum in noisy environments.
title_full_unstemmed	Whispering to the deaf: communication by a frog without external vocal sac or tympanum in noisy environments.
title_sort	whispering to the deaf: communication by a frog without external vocal sac or tympanum in noisy environments.
publisher	Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publishDate	2011
url	https://doaj.org/article/dc3e63c846434c04b683c3611fd1b025
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Whispering to the deaf: communication by a frog without external vocal sac or tympanum in noisy environments.

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