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Influence of amplitude modulated noise on the recognition of communication signals in the grasshopper Chorthippus biguttulus

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Abstract

The detection of acoustic communication signals in the presence of sinusoidally amplitude modulated noise was investigated in males of the grasshopper Chorthippus biguttulus. The auditory system of grasshoppers exhibits only poor spectral resolution. Hence, these animals are ideally suited to investigate noise tolerance in a system operating in the temporal domain. As a sensitive indicator for signal recognition the conspicuous phonotactic turning responses of males were recorded. The main result was that noise modulated at low frequencies (1.5–5 Hz) did not impair recognition compared to a unmodulated noise. With long stimuli even a moderate improvement of noise tolerance was observed, an effect that can probably be attributed to the existence of long troughs at low modulation frequencies during which the masking of the signal was reduced. Higher modulation frequencies (15–150 Hz), however, rendered detection and recognition increasingly difficult, due to a strong interference of the sound pulses of the masking noise with the syllable-pause structure of the species-specific signals. There are no indications for the operation of mechanisms analogous to comodulation masking release as found in vertebrates, nor for a spatial release from masking.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Stephan Loschen and Johannes Zander for help with the behavioural experiments and Astrid Franz and Matthias Hennig for many discussions and for valuable comments on the manuscript. We also thank two anonymous reviewers for helpful suggestions. This work was supported by a grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft to B.R. All experiments complied with the current German legislation concerning animal care.

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  1. Department of Biology, Humboldt University, Invalidenstr. 43, 10099, Berlin, Germany

    B. Ronacher & C. Hoffmann

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  1. B. Ronacher
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  2. C. Hoffmann
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Correspondence to B. Ronacher.

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Ronacher, B., Hoffmann, C. Influence of amplitude modulated noise on the recognition of communication signals in the grasshopper Chorthippus biguttulus . J Comp Physiol A 189, 419–425 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-003-0417-z

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