Auditory response characteristics of the piebald odorous frog and their implications.
The piebald odorous frog (Odorrana schmackeri), the large odorous frog (Odorrana livida) and the concave-eared torrent frog (Amolops tormotus) are sympatric species living near the same torrent streams in the vicinity of Mt. Huangshan, China. A recent study demonstrated that A. tormotus can use sound signals involving ultrasonic components for communication in a noisy environment, and another sympatric species, O. livida, can also perceive ultrasonic sound. Here we report data on the hearing range of O. schmackeri by studying auditory evoked potentials and single-unit data from the torus semicircularis. This frog exhibits its two most sensitive peaks at 2 kHz and 3.5-4.0 kHz with thresholds <42 dB SPL, with an upper frequency limit of hearing at 8.5 kHz with threshold of 87 dB SPL. The upper limit is much lower than those of O. livida and A. tormotus, at 22 and 34 kHz, respectively. It suggests that sympatric species may respond differently to similar environmental selection pressures sculpting auditory communication systems.
State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
Zu-Lin
ZL
Yu
Qiang
Q
Qiu
Zhi-Min
ZM
Xu
Jun-Xian
JX
Shen
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000200:Action Potentials / Q000187:drug effects; D000818:Animals; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology* / Q000528:radiation effects; D001309:Auditory Threshold / Q000502:physiology*; D001933:Brain Stem / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology; D004307:Dose-Response Relationship, Radiation; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory / Q000502:physiology / Q000528:radiation effects; D006309:Hearing / Q000502:physiology*; D009622:Noise; D011898:Ranidae / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology / Q000528:radiation effects; D014828:Vocalization, Animal / Q000502:physiology