The benefits of listening to yourself: Enhanced audition in the male mosquito ear
-
1
University of Strathclyde, Centre for Ultrasonic Engineering, United Kingdom
Audition in mosquitoes is of wide interest as a model system for active hearing. An antenna, driven by the sound of another mosquito flying, is connected to around 16000 motile mechanosensory neurones. Interplay between mechanical resonances and force feedback creates an antennal motion that is highly dependent on the sound amplitude [1,2]. During courtship, males pursue females in flight, synchronizing their flight tone as a putative method of inter- or intra-specific recognition [3]. It is thought that the combined sound field from both male and female drive the antenna and that this superposition is necessary for flight-tone synchronization.
The nonlinear behaviour of the antenna under single-tone stimulation is known. However, it is not clear what the effect of a second, self-generated sound would be on the nonlinear amplification and hysteresis. If, for example, the male hearing organ is stimulated by both the female sound and the male’s own wingbeat sound, what happens to the amplification events that are clearly defined for a single-tone stimulus? We assumed a priori that a second tone would act as a mask, increasing the threshold required for amplification to occur.
Using combined laser Doppler vibrometry and electrophysiological techniques, we studied the response of the male antenna to idealised sound comprising an amplitude-modulated female sound and a background sound at a constant intensity mimicking the male’s own sound. Firstly, the nonlinear nature of the antenna means that, mechanically, the male frequency is attenuated when the female sound becomes loud enough. This is also clear in electrophysiological data, where compound action potentials at the male frequency are greatly reduced when amplification events occur.
Most interestingly, experiments revealed that the presence of the background male sound actually enhances the nonlinear behaviour of the male antenna. When driven by both the female and male idealised signal, the amplification events occur for a lower female sound level as the male background sound level increases. Put another way, the male sound does not inhibit sensitivity but enhances it, which represents a counter-intuitive result that self-generated sound can be beneficial to auditory capability, rather than a hindrance.
Acknowledgements
This work was funded by the EPSRC. JCJ would like to thank Shahida Begum at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine for the provision of mosquitoes.
References
[1] JC Jackson, D Robert, PNAS (2006) 103 (45) 16734-16739
[2] JC Jackson, JFC Windmill, VG Pook, D Robert, PNAS (2009) 106 (25) 10177-10182
[3] G Gibson, I Russell, Curr. Biol. (2006) 16 1311-1316
Keywords:
active hearing,
Sensitivity
Conference:
Tenth International Congress of Neuroethology, College Park. Maryland USA, United States, 5 Aug - 10 Aug, 2012.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation (see alternatives below as well)
Topic:
Sensory: Audition
Citation:
Jackson
JC and
Windmill
JF
(2012). The benefits of listening to yourself: Enhanced audition in the male mosquito ear.
Conference Abstract:
Tenth International Congress of Neuroethology.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnbeh.2012.27.00076
Copyright:
The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers.
They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters.
The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated.
Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed.
For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions.
Received:
28 Mar 2012;
Published Online:
07 Jul 2012.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Joseph C Jackson, University of Strathclyde, Centre for Ultrasonic Engineering, Glasgow, G11 7SH, United Kingdom, joseph.jackson@eee.strath.ac.uk