Calling-song recognition in a rapidly singing cricket, Gryllus assimilis
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1
McGill University, Canada
As in many cricket species, calling song of the Jamaican field cricket, Gryllus assimilis, consists of regularly repeated chirps, each consisting of a series of individual sound pulses. G. assimilis song is unusual, however, in its high intra-chirp pulse rate of ca. 80 Hz. In other cricket species, pulse rate has been shown to be an important cue for recognition of species-specific song; however nearly all previous studies examined species with relatively low pulse rates in the range 15-30 Hz, leaving open the question of whether very rapid pulse rate could also serve as a species-identifying feature. We examined selectivity of G. assimilis females for model calling songs that differed in intrachirp pulse rate by measuring phonotaxis responses both while walking on a spherical treadmill and during tethered flight. In both assays, females responded most strongly (and, in the flight assay, with shortest latency) to song models with species-typical pulse rates. To determine how reliably high pulse rates can be represented in the nervous system, we recorded from the identified interneuron AN1, which is the main conduit of cricket-song-related information from early processing stages in the prothoracic ganglion to the brain. Mean firing rate of AN1 is relatively unaffected by pulse rate, but the ability of the spike train to encode the stimulus temporal pattern decreases as pulse rate increases. Stimuli with lower-than-normal pulse rates, which are rejected behaviorally, are nevertheless well coded, suggesting that their rejection is due to pattern-selective filters in the brain. However, stimuli with higher-than-normal pulse rates are coded poorly, suggesting that early processing may contribute to their rejection. It is thus possible that, for crickets that sing with high pulse rates, high-pass and low-pass components of temporal-pattern filters may be distributed across different levels of neural processing.
Acknowledgements
Supported by a Discovery Grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
Keywords:
AN1,
cricket,
Gryllus assimilis,
phonotaxis,
species-specific song recognition
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:
Pollack
G and
Kim
J
(2012). Calling-song recognition in a rapidly singing cricket, Gryllus assimilis.
Conference Abstract:
Tenth International Congress of Neuroethology.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnbeh.2012.27.00444
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Received:
24 May 2012;
Published Online:
07 Jul 2012.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Gerald Pollack, McGill University, Montreal, Canada, gerald.pollack@mcgill.ca