ANTA02H3 Lecture : High background noise shapes cricket hearing.pdf
Document Summary
Published by the company of biologists ltd doi:10. 1242/jeb. 053819. High background noise shapes selective auditory filters in a tropical cricket. 1zoology, karl-franzens-university, universit tsplatz 2, 8010 graz, austria and 2zoologisches forschungsmuseum alexander. Arne k. d. schmidt1,*, klaus riede2 and heiner r mer1. Because of call frequency overlap and masking interference, the airborne sound channel represents a limited resource for communication in a species-rich cricket community like the tropical rainforest. As predicted, the rainforest species exhibited a more selective tuning compared with the european counterparts. The filter reduced background nocturnal noise levels by 26 db, compared with only 16 and 10 db in the two european species. We also quantified the performance of the sensory filter under the different filter regimes by examining the representation of the species- specific amplitude modulation of the male calling song, when embedded in background noise. Again, the filter of the rainforest cricket performed significantly better in terms of representing this important signal parameter.
