Abstract
Insects are often small relative to the wavelengths of sounds they need to localize, which presents a fundamental biophysical problem. Understanding novel solutions to this limitation can provide insights for biomimetic technologies. Such an approach has been successful using the fly Ormia ochracea (Diptera: Tachinidae) as a model. O. ochracea is a parasitoid species whose larvae develop as internal parasites within crickets (Gryllidae). In nature, female flies find singing male crickets by phonotaxis, despite severe constraints on directional hearing due to their small size. A physical coupling between the two tympanal membranes allows the flies to obtain information about sound source direction with high accuracy because it generates interaural time-differences (ITD) and interaural level differences (ILD) in tympanal vibrations that are exaggerated relative to the small arrival-time difference at the two ears, that is the only cue available in the sound stimulus. In this study, I demonstrate that pure time-differences in the neural responses to sound stimuli are sufficient for auditory directionality in O. ochracea.
Introduction
The fly Ormia ochracea (Diptera:Tachinidae) possesses an auditory system that performs analagous functions to those of vertebrate hearing (detection, recognition, segregation, and localization or sources), albeit for a restricted range of stimuli (). The flies are parasitoids and females must locate a cricket host in order to reproduce (). They accomplish this by localizing the calls of singing male crickets using an auditory system dedicated to this task (). Tympanal hearing is unusual for flies. All known examples are species that are parasitoids of acoustic insects (; ; ), and these include two families (Tachinidae and Sarcophagidae) in which tympanal hearing has evolved independently through convergent adaptation of the same precursor organ (; ; ).
Due to the small size of the flies (ears are < 0.5 mm apart) relative to the wavelength of cricket sound (∼7 cm), acoustic directional cues are severely restricted (). Sound waves impinging on the fly auditory system generate no interaural level difference (ILD) and interaural time differences (ITDs) are very small (maximum 1.5 μs for a sound source at 90° relative to the midline axis). Nevertheless, flies can localize a cricket sound source with exceptional accuracy (<2° azimuth, ).
Directional hearing in Ormia is derived from a specialized mechanical coupling between the two tympanal membranes (). Mechanical coupling of the two eardrums amplifies the small direction-dependent ITDs in the sound field, and generates ILDs in the tympanal vibration responses, so that both cues are present in the tympanal () and neural responses (; ). Modeling of Ormia auditory mechanics () demonstrated that intertympanal coupling results in a system with two resonant modes of vibration in response to acoustic stimulation (Figure 1): a symmetric mode, in which the two tympani vibrate with equal amplitude and phase; and an antisymmetric mode, in which the two tympani vibrate with equal amplitude but opposite phase. Under normal acoustic conditions, a sound source located directly ahead of the fly (0° azimuth) generates vibration in the symmetric mode (each tympanum driven by identical sound pressure waves). Sound impinging from any other direction, however, will stimulate a combination of both modes of vibration with the result that the two tympani will respond with different (direction-dependent) amplitudes and phases of vibration, with maximum interaural differences of ∼12 dB in amplitude and ∼50 μs delay ().
FIGURE 1
Analyses of the mechanical properties of Ormia tympanal membranes (; ; ) have demonstrated that the mechanical coupling between the two eardrums enhances the system’s sensitivity to the minute direction-dependent differences in arrival time of sound at the two ears. The nature of this effect is two-fold. (1) The arrival-time difference is amplified to result in a larger ipsilateral-leading phase difference between vibrations of the two tympani, creating a tympanal interaural time difference (tITD). (2) The amplitude of contralateral tympanal vibration is reduced relative to ipsilateral, creating a tympanal interaural level difference (tILD).
The majority of auditory receptors associated with each ear respond with tonic bursts at the onset of sound pulses () with response latencies that are dependent on tympanal vibration level, such that tILDs result in direction-dependent interaural latency differences in receptor responses. These neural interaural time differences (nITD) scale with the azimuth of the sound source location (; Figure 2). Receptor thresholds vary, however, and another effect of tILDs is (direction dependent) differential recruitment of receptors in the two ears, such that directional sound sources will also generate interaural differences in the amplitude of summed neural responses – neural interaural level differences (nILD).
FIGURE 2
The directional mechanism of interaural coupling in ormiine ears was at first considered to be a unique evolutionary innovation. However, Ormia directional hearing is now considered to be a specialized example of a taxonomically widespread phenomenon by which acoustic directional cues (mainly ITDs) are amplified via interactions between the two ears to generate larger ITDs and ILDs in tympanal vibration which can then be used to encode directional information in neural responses. Internally coupled ears (ICE) include the majority of vertebrate auditory systems (
The principle of directionality via coupled hearing has been the basis of multiple auditory adaptations (
Ormia auditory directionality has also emerged as an adaptable model for novel technology, and the past couple of decades have seen considerable interest in biomimetic applications of the flies’ intertympanal coupling principle to engineering problems related to source localization for waveform signals, with two main areas of research. Efforts to design biomimetic directional microphones (BDMs, with application, for example, in hearing aids) have sought to mimic the mechanical properties of the fly eardrums in micro-electro-mechanical-system (MEMS) devices (
Previous work has shown that directional information is represented in the fly auditory system by amplified ITDs in the responses of auditory receptors (
Materials and Methods
Animals
Experiments were conducted on lab-reared gravid female Ormia ochracea derived from specimens originally collected in Gainesville FL. Flies were maintained at 25°C and 75% humidity on a 12-h:12-h light:dark regime and fed nectar solution (The Birding Company, Yarmouth, MA, United States) ad libitum.
Acoustic Stimuli
Single tone pulses (5 kHz, 10 ms duration, 0.1 or 0.5 ms rise/fall time) or synthetic cricket chirps (10 pulses at 50/s) were delivered from two speakers at 84 dB SPL (unless otherwise specified). Acoustic stimuli were synthesized using Tucker-Davis Technologies (TDT) hardware (System 3) and custom scripts written in C or Matlab. The stimuli were amplified (NAD S300), passed through a programmable attenuator (TDT model PA5) and broadcast from piezoelectric horn tweeters (Radio Shack Realistic, Taiwan). Stimulus amplitude and timing were controlled by computer and calibrated with a probe microphone (B&K Type 4182, Denmark). The relative phase and amplitude of simultaneous stimuli were adjusted to manipulate auditory ITDs and ILDs independently (see below).
Experimental Measurements
Behavior
Phonotactic responses were recorded with flies mounted on a spherical treadmill which transduced walking movements for recording by computer (
Tympanal Vibration
Following behavioral experiments, flies’ heads were removed and tympanal vibration measured under identical acoustic conditions, using a laser Doppler vibrometer (LDV) (Polytec OFV 3001 controller, OFV 511 sensor head).
Auditory Nerve Recording
For some stimulus conditions, I recorded summed auditory nerve responses simultaneously from both ears, under stimulus conditions similar to behavioral and tympanal measurements, using tungsten wire electrodes (AM Systems, 0.25 mm). Amplified (AM Systems Model 1800) neural responses were averaged (50 sweeps) and recorded by computer (TDT AD1, 100 kHz sampling rate).
Behavioral, physiological, and mechanical measurements were all carried out in the same setup, with behavioral and mechanical measurements made on the same individuals. Physiological recordings were made on separate cohort of specimens under identical conditions.
I first repeated the measurement of eardrum responses to directional stimuli using the same setup as the other experiments and confirmed comparable results to those in the literature. I then conducted a set of experiments (1–3) aimed a manipulating nITDs and nILDs separately, to address the question of how much each of these response parameters contributes to the coding of auditory directionality.
Results
Auditory Cues for Sound Localization
Figure 2 shows variation in the timing and amplitude of summed auditory nerve responses over a 15 dB range of stimulus levels comparable to the range of tILDs. Previous studies (
I conducted a set of experiments aimed a manipulating nITDs and nILDs separately, to address the question of how each of these response parameters contributes to the coding of auditory directionality.
Experiment 1 – Standing Wave
This experiment was designed to exploit the antisymmetric mode of tympanal vibration by placing a fly at the node of an acoustic standing wave.
Flies were tethered in place atop the spherical treadmill (
By broadcasting the same stimuli in phase from both speakers, I could also generate a summed waveform at the midline of the fly. This condition should elicit symmetric mode tympanal vibration (mimicking a phantom source at 0° azimuth,
Flies’ behavioral responses (phonotaxis toward synthetic cricket chirps) were recorded (n = 6) for: (i) directional signals from each speaker individually; (ii) the standing wave condition (signals canceling at the fly’s midline), recorded for both relative phases of tympanal vibration (i.e., left-leading and right-leading); and (iii) the summing signals condition. After behavioral recordings I measured tympanal vibration under identical conditions using the LDV to validate the stimulus conditions. I show the tympanal vibration data first.
Tympanal Responses
First, I verified the behavior of the system for conventional free-field auditory stimulation. Tympanal vibration in response to a single source located at 90° was exactly as predicted by the original analyses of the mechanics of the system (
FIGURE 3

(A) Recorded tympanal vibration (velocity, 6 sweeps averaged) for a sound source located 90° relative to midline. Ipsilateral (blue) tympanum vibrates with 12dB higher amplitude than contralateral (red), and contralateral tympanal vibration is delayed by 70 μs relative to ipsilateral. Note that traces show the response of the same tympanum with ipsilateral and contralateral referring to the location of the sound source. (B) Tympanal vibration (velocity) for two sound sources located ± 90° relative to midline. Sources broadcast identical, but opposite-phase stimuli, adjusted to create a standing wave with a node located at the midline of the two tympani. Tympanal vibrations are equal in amplitude and opposite phase, such that there is a 100 μs delay between corresponding wave peaks.
In the standing wave condition, ipsi- and contralateral tympanal vibrations are equal-amplitude and 180° out of phase, equivalent to a ± 100 μs tITD (depending on the phase of the standing wave, Figure 3B). In the summed stimulus condition, the tympani showed equal-amplitude, in-phase vibration (symmetric mode) similar to a sound source directly ahead (0° azimuth, data not shown).
Behavioral Responses
Flies’ sound localization behavior was highly consistent within each stimulus condition (Figure 4). In response to stimuli broadcast from either speaker alone, flies showed appropriately oriented phonotaxis. There was no difference in the orientation of phonotaxis between the standing wave and summed stimulus conditions and no effect of a phase reversal in the standing wave. In each condition flies walked directly ahead (0° azimuth). Pure asymmetric mode tympanal vibration did not generate directional cues, despite a 100 μs tITD.
FIGURE 4

Phonotactic walking responses for standing wave stimuli. The upper panel shows data for a single fly (grid = 5 cm). Thick lines represent averages (10 runs per trace); fine lines show the corresponding individual responses. Symbols (here and in subsequent figures) show the angles of the individual responses measured at the halfway point of each walking path, and statistical comparisons were based on these angles. The lower panel shows pooled responses for six flies (10 runs per fly in each trace, grid = 2 cm). Black traces are responses to stimuli from single speakers on the corresponding side of the fly. The green traces show responses to both speakers broadcasting in-phase stimuli (symmetric tympanal vibration simulates a single source at 0°). The blue and red traces show responses to both speakers broadcasting opposite-phase stimuli adjusted to create a standing wave (anti-symmetric vibration, for equal-amplitude but out-of-phase tympanal vibration), with blue and red traces representing opposite-phase standing waves. The flies’ responses were not affected by the phase of the standing wave (single fly – Watson’s U = 0.093, p > 0.1; pooled data – Watson’s U = 0.0416, p > 0.1, n = 6). Responses to these conditions are similar to a forward source and show no directional response to cycle-by-cycle phase differences in the stimulus waveform as a cue for directionality (single fly – Rao’s homogeneity test for vector direction = 1.55916, p > 0.4; pooled data – Friedman chi-squared = 3.0333, df = 2, p > 0.2).
Previous work has demonstrated, however, that small differences in the timing of stimulus onset can affect fly responses and mediate selective attention to one among multiple simultaneous sources, via a precedence effect (
Experiment 2 – Onset Cancelation
In this experiment, conditions were similar to experiment 1, except that one speaker was placed at 0° azimuth (directly forward of the fly), while a second speaker was placed at 90° (lateral to the fly). The forward speaker broadcast a synthetic cricket chirp, which should elicit phonotaxis in the forward direction. The second speaker broadcast a train of brief impulses, approximating a half-cycle of the 5 kHz chirp waveform, timed to coincide with the initial onset of the individual pulses of the synthetic chirp, and phase-adjusted to cancel the initial cycle of each chirp pulse (Figure 5). Due to the directional properties of the tympanal membranes, and because the impulse source is located lateral to the fly (90° azimuth), its effect will be greater on the ipsilateral tympanum than the contralateral by 12 dB (see above, Figure 3).
FIGURE 5

Stimulus setup for onset-cancelation (Experiment 2). One speaker broadcasts an attractive stimulus at 0° (which should elicit phonotaxis in the forward direction). A second speaker, at 90°, broadcasts a series of impulses adjusted in amplitude and phase to cancel the initial portion of the attractive stimulus waveform. Due to the directional properties of the tympanal membranes, and the lateral location of the impulse source, cancelation will be greater for the tympanum ipsilateral to the impulse source (contralateral tympanal vibration for a 90° source will be attenuated relative to ipsilateral by 12 dB in these measurements). This condition should elicit equal-amplitude, in-phase tympanal vibration (consistent with a forward source location) but with a delay in the onset of the stimulus envelope on one side (ipsilateral to the impulse source).
The overall result of this stimulus arrangement is that the onset cancelation has a greater effect on the ipsilateral side (relative to the impulse source) than the contralateral, resulting in a delay in the rise-time of the amplitude envelope of the chirp pulses at the ipsilateral tympanum (Figure 6). This has no effect on the overall amplitude of the stimulus at either tympanum but results in a delay in onset timing that is also measurable in summed auditory nerve responses (Figure 7). The additional apparatus required for nerve recordings made it more difficult to calibrate the stimuli in these experiments. Interaural delays measured in auditory nerve responses were variable, with a mean ± s.d. nITD in the cancelation condition of 48.6 ± 125.5 μs (n = 7).
FIGURE 6

Onset-cancelation tympanal responses. Upper traces show the onset of the stimulus waveforms recorded at the midline position of the fly (green – forward chirp alone; blue – chirp with impulses canceling initial onset). The rise-time of the stimulus waveform is delayed in the cancelation condition. Middle traces show the corresponding vibration responses for the two tympani for the forward chirp alone (simultaneous responses). Lower traces show tympanal vibration with onset cancelation. The impulse-ipsilateral tympanal response is delayed.
FIGURE 7

Paired auditory nerve recordings for a stimulus source at 0° alone (upper traces) and in the onset-cancelation condition (lower traces). Auditory responses are nearly simultaneous for a forward source alone. In the onset-cancelation condition, ipsilateral responses (relative to the cancelation source) are delayed.
Behavioral Responses
Fly behavior (n = 5) clearly indicated that interaural differences in the timing of stimulus onset constituted a directional cue in the absence of an amplitude difference (Figure 8). Phonotactic walking paths were diverted contralateral to the impulse source (toward the side with leading chirp pulse onsets). Reversing the phase of the impulse waveforms (summing rather than canceling ipsilateral pulse onsets) reversed the effect, and phonotaxis was diverted ipsilateral to the impulse source.
FIGURE 8

Onset-cancelation behavioral responses for a single fly. Lines represent average (n = 10) walking paths (grid = 0.5 cm); symbols show the individual response angles (as in Figure 4). Flies walk forward, toward an attractive acoustic stimulus located on midline (0° azimuth, black trace). When impulses broadcast from a lateral location (± 90° azimuth) are timed to cancel the onset of the attractive stimulus pulses, flies’ responses are in the direction contralateral to the impulse source (blue line, 0° alone vs. 0° + cancel: Watson’s U = 0.6626, p < 0.001). Reversing the phase of the impulses (so that they sum, rather than cancel the attractive pulse onsets) causes the flies’ responses to be oriented toward (ipsilateral to) the impulse source (red line, 0° alone vs. 0° + sum: Watson’s U = 0.5016, p < 0.001).
For comparison with free-field auditory directionality, I shifted the position of the attractive sound source to determine what source azimuth elicited responses with similar directionality to the onset-cancelation condition. The directional effect of onset cancelation was equivalent to a source azimuth of 2° (Figure 9).
FIGURE 9

Comparison with free-field auditory directionality. The directional effect of onset cancelation corresponded to a source azimuth of 2°. Chirp at 0° vs. onset cancel: n = 5 flies, 10 runs/fly/angle, Watson’s U = 0.4607, p < 0.001. Grid = 1 cm.
Discussion
Although flies are not sensitive to cycle-by-cycle phase differences in the stimulus waveform, they do show a directional response for stimuli that differ only in the timing of the amplitude envelope, as shown by experiment, and which generate only latency differences in the responses of auditory receptors. However, the magnitude of these directional responses (i.e., the perceived source direction as indicated by the direction of the flies’ walking path) is somewhat smaller than would be predicted by measurements of the nITD induced by the stimuli, although still within the range of nITDs elicited by directional sound sources in free field stimulation. Measurements of nITDs in response to variation in sound source azimuth (
Temporal cues play an integral role in auditory processing (beyond the obvious importance in temporal pattern recognition for the pulsatile acoustic signals of their cricket hosts). Flies’ auditory receptors respond almost exclusively to pulse onsets (
In a number of functional characteristics, Ormia hearing is convergent with more familiar (i.e., vertebrate) auditory mechanisms, and these may be seen as common principles arising from adaptation to the physics of sound. There are also clear differences, however, which could be consequences of the specific implementation of directionality in Ormia ears. For example, noise can disrupt directional acuity in Ormia and this is not alleviated by spatial separation of noise and signal (flies show no spatial release from masking,
What we know about the flies’ hearing suggests that they accomplish as much as possible via peripheral filtering, with their auditory system functioning as a high-resolution, rapidly responding, symmetry detector that makes discrete measurements corresponding to the onset of each pulse in the signal. Flies simply orient to the direction that balances auditory input in time and amplitude. The lack of spatial release from masking and biased response to noise is a consequence of this (
The major evolutionary innovation for Ormia hearing is that tympanal coupling relieves them from size limitation in auditory directionality. Comparative and phylogenetic studies (
Despite the fact that auditory directionality via ICE is now known to be a rather widespread phenomenon (
Statements
Data availability statement
The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.
Author contributions
The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and has approved it for publication.
Funding
This work was supported by funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada, (grant numbers 238882 and 241419).
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Tom Adelman for suggesting the standing-wave manipulation; Ali Kanji and Jessica Shaikh for help with rearing flies.
Conflict of interest
The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Abbreviations
- BMAA
biomimetic antenna array
- ICE
internally coupled ears
- ILD/ITD
interaural level/time difference
- MEMS
micro-electromechanical system
- nITD/nILD
neural interaural level/time difference
- tITD/tILD
tympanal interaural level/time difference.
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Summary
Keywords
directional hearing, eardrum, insect, phonotaxis, interaural difference, coupled ears, Ormia
Citation
Mason AC (2021) Cues for Directional Hearing in the Fly Ormia ochracea. Front. Ecol. Evol. 9:679064. doi: 10.3389/fevo.2021.679064
Received
10 March 2021
Accepted
04 June 2021
Published
02 July 2021
Volume
9 - 2021
Edited by
Fernando Montealegre-Z, University of Lincoln, United Kingdom
Reviewed by
Heiner Römer, University of Graz, Austria; Bernhard Ronacher, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany
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Copyright
© 2021 Mason.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Andrew C. Mason, andrew.mason@utoronto.ca
This article was submitted to Behavioral and Evolutionary Ecology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution
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