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Sound production in the whitemouth croaker and relationship between fish size and disturbance call characteristics

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Abstract

The whitemouth croaker produces two different sounds using extrinsic sonic muscles: (1) male advertisement calls during the spawning season and (2) disturbance calls, produced by both sexes. The advertisement call, related to courtship, was recorded in the field and from two marked spawning males of 28 and 30.5 cm LT in the laboratory. It consists of individual pulses with average durations of 19.7 ms and 17.8 ms for the two males respectively, interpulse intervals of 496 ms and 718 ms, and dominant frequencies of 280 Hz and 316 Hz. Pulses are emitted in bouts of one to three min duration. Disturbance calls consist of a burst of pulses produced at short intervals, and the pulse duration, interpulse interval and dominant frequency of the pulses average 19.8 ms, 17.1 ms, and 363 Hz, respectively. Dominant frequency and interpulse interval decrease and pulse duration increases with fish size. Sound characteristics change markedly in young of the year individuals (lower than 25 cm LT) after which they appear to stabilize. Higher dominant frequency in the advertisement than in the disturbance call and the relationship of dominant frequency to pulse duration suggest that dominant frequency is determined as a forced response to muscle contraction parameters rather than by the natural frequency of the swimbladder.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Diego Bouvier for his help in the construction of the hydrophone, D. Montiel (Director DINARA) for allowing us to use the research vessel R/V Aldebaran, Robert Bird (Captain) and crew for its invaluable support in the collection of data. We are grateful to Daniela Olsson for her help on board R/V Aldebaran, and to S. S. Tellechea, V. Fajardo, G. Botto, G. Moreno, and the artisanal fishermen of Solymar and Pajas Blancas.

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  1. Walter Norbis

    Present address: Laboratorio de Fisiología de la Reproducción y Ecología de peces, Departamento de Biologia Animal, Instituto de Biologia, Facultad de Ciencias, Montevideo, Uruguay

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Ecología, Sección Oceanología, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de la Republica, Igua 4225, Montevideo, CP 11400, Uruguay

    Javier S. Tellechea, Carlos Martinez & Walter Norbis

  2. Department of Biology, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, 23284-2012, USA

    Michael L. Fine

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  1. Javier S. Tellechea
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Correspondence to Javier S. Tellechea.

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Tellechea, J.S., Martinez, C., Fine, M.L. et al. Sound production in the whitemouth croaker and relationship between fish size and disturbance call characteristics. Environ Biol Fish 89, 163–172 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-010-9709-7

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