Perceptually salient differences in a species recognition cue do not promote auditory streaming in eastern grey treefrogs (Hyla versicolor).

Auditory streaming underlies a receiver's ability to organize complex mixtures of auditory input into distinct perceptual "streams" that represent different sound sources in the environment. During auditory streaming, sounds produced by the same source are integrated through time into a single, coherent auditory stream that is perceptually segregated from other concurrent sounds. Based on human psychoacoustic studies, one hypothesis regarding auditory streaming is that any sufficiently salient perceptual difference may lead to stream segregation.

In your CORT: Corticosterone and its receptors in the brain underlie mate choosiness in female Cope's gray treefrogs (Hyla chrysoscelis).

Selecting an attractive mate can involve trade-offs related to investment in sampling effort. Glucocorticoids like corticosterone (CORT) are involved in resolving energetic trade-offs. However, CORT is rarely studied in the context of mate choice, despite its elevated levels during reproductive readiness and the energetic transitions that characterize reproduction.

Toxic Tire Wear Compounds (6PPD-Q and 4-ADPA) Detected in Airborne Particulate Matter Along a Highway in Mississippi, USA.

Tire wear particles (TWPs) are a major category of microplastic pollution produced by friction between tires and road surfaces. This non-exhaust particulate matter (PM) containing leachable toxic compounds is transported through the air and with stormwater runoff, leading to environmental pollution and human health concerns. In the present study, we collected airborne PM at varying distances (5, 15 and 30 m) along US Highway 278 in Oxford, Mississippi, USA, for ten consecutive days using Sigma-2 passive samplers.

Soil nutrient distribution and plant nutrient status in a mangrove stand adjacent to an aquaculture farm.

The marine aquaculture industry has caused a suite of adverse environmental consequences, including offshore eutrophication. However, little is known about the extent to which aquaculture effluents affect nearby wetland ecosystems. We carried out a field experiment in a mangrove stand located between two effluent-receiving creeks to estimate the extent to which marine aquaculture affects the soil nutrient distribution and plant nutrient status of adjacent mangroves.

Behind the mask(ing): how frogs cope with noise.

Albert Feng was a pioneer in the field of auditory neuroethology who used frogs to investigate the neural basis of spectral and temporal processing and directional hearing. Among his many contributions was connecting neural mechanisms for sound pattern recognition and localization to the problems of auditory masking that frogs encounter when communicating in noisy, real-world environments. Feng's neurophysiological studies of auditory processing foreshadowed and inspired subsequent behavioral investigations of auditory masking in frogs.

Female preferences for the spectral content of advertisement calls in Cope's gray treefrog (Hyla chrysoscelis).

Amphibians have inner ears with two sensory papillae tuned to different frequency ranges of airborne sounds. In frogs, male advertisement calls possess distinct spectral components that match the tuning of one or both sensory papillae. Female preferences for the spectral content of advertisement calls can depend on signal amplitude and can vary among closely related lineages.

Neuroethology of sound localization in anurans.

Albert Feng pioneered the study of neuroethology of sound localization in anurans by combining behavioral experiments on phonotaxis with detailed investigations of neural processing of sound direction from the periphery to the central nervous system. The main advantage of these studies is that many species of female frogs readily perform phonotaxis towards loudspeakers emitting the species-specific advertisement call. Behavioral studies using synthetic calls can identify which parameters are important for phonotaxis and also quantify localization accuracy.

Predicting and Measuring Decision Rules for Social Recognition in a Neotropical Frog.

AbstractMany animals use signals to recognize familiar individuals but risk making mistakes because the signal properties of different individuals often overlap. Furthermore, outcomes of correct and incorrect decisions yield different fitness payoffs, and animals incur these payoffs at different frequencies depending on interaction rates. To understand how signal variation, payoffs, and interaction rates shape recognition decision rules, we studied male golden rocket frogs, which recognize the calls of territory neighbors and are less aggressive to neighbors than to strangers.

Convergent evolution of a blood-red nectar pigment in vertebrate-pollinated flowers.

Nearly 90% of flowering plants depend on animals for reproduction. One of the main rewards plants offer to pollinators for visitation is nectar. (Campanulaceae) produces a blood-red nectar that has been proposed to serve as a visual attractant for pollinator visitation.

Neural basis of acoustic species recognition in a cryptic species complex.

Sexual traits that promote species recognition are important drivers of reproductive isolation, especially among closely related species. Identifying neural processes that shape species differences in recognition is crucial for understanding the causal mechanisms of reproductive isolation. Temporal patterns are salient features of sexual signals that are widely used in species recognition by several taxa, including anurans.

Identity signaling, identity reception, and the evolution of social recognition in a Neotropical frog.

Animals recognize familiar individuals to perform a variety of important social behaviors. Social recognition is often mediated by communication between signalers who produce signals that contain identity information and receivers who categorize these signals based on previous experience. We tested two hypotheses about adaptations in signalers and receivers that enable the evolution of social recognition using two species of closely related territorial poison frogs.

Social Communication across Reproductive Boundaries: Hormones and the Auditory Periphery of Songbirds and Frogs.

Most animals experience reproductive transitions in their lives; for example, reaching reproductive maturity or cycling in and out of breeding condition. Some reproductive transitions are abrupt, while others are more gradual. In most cases, changes in communication between the sexes follow the time course of these reproductive transitions and are typically thought to be coordinated by steroid hormones.

An integrative approach to infer systematic relationships and define species groups in the shrub frog genus , with description of five new species from the Western Ghats, India.

The genus is a large radiation of Old World tree frogs for which the Western Ghats in Peninsular India is the major center for origin and diversification. Extensive studies on this group during the past two decades have resolved long-standing taxonomic confusions and uncovered several new species, resulting in a four-fold increase in the number of known frogs from this region. Our ongoing research has revealed another five new species in the genus, formally described as sp.

Lung mediated auditory contrast enhancement improves the Signal-to-noise ratio for communication in frogs.

Environmental noise is a major source of selection on animal sensory and communication systems. The acoustic signals of other animals represent particularly potent sources of noise for chorusing insects, frogs, and birds, which contend with a multi-species analog of the human "cocktail party problem" (i.e.

Moderately elevated glucocorticoids increase mate choosiness but do not affect sexual proceptivity or preferences in female gray treefrogs.

Glucocorticoids (GCs) are rarely studied in the context of female mate choice, despite the expression of receptors for these products in sexual, sensory and decision-making brain areas. Here we investigated the effects of GC concentrations on three aspects of female sexual behavior in breeding Cope's gray treefrogs (Hyla chrysoscelis): proceptivity-a measure of sexual motivation, intraspecific mate preferences, and mate choosiness. To our knowledge this is the first experimental study on the endocrine basis of mate choosiness.

Treefrogs exploit temporal coherence to form perceptual objects of communication signals.

For many animals, navigating their environment requires an ability to organize continuous streams of sensory input into discrete 'perceptual objects' that correspond to physical entities in visual and auditory scenes. The human visual and auditory systems follow several Gestalt laws of perceptual organization to bind constituent features into coherent perceptual objects. A largely unexplored question is whether nonhuman animals follow similar Gestalt laws in perceiving behaviourally relevant stimuli, such as communication signals.

Lung-to-ear sound transmission does not improve directional hearing in green treefrogs ().

Amphibians are unique among extant vertebrates in having middle ear cavities that are internally coupled to each other and to the lungs. In frogs, the lung-to-ear sound transmission pathway can influence the tympanum's inherent directionality, but what role such effects might play in directional hearing remains unclear. In this study of the American green treefrog (), we tested the hypothesis that the lung-to-ear sound transmission pathway functions to improve directional hearing, particularly in the context of intraspecific sexual communication.

Customizable Recorder of Animal Kinesis (CRoAK): A multi-axis instrumented enclosure for measuring animal movements.

Accurately quantifying animal activity and movements is of fundamental importance in a broad range of disciplines, from biomedical research to behavioral ecology. In many instances, it is desirable to measure natural movements in controlled sensory environments in which the animals are not physically or chemically restrained, but their movements are nevertheless constrained to occur within a fixed volume. Here, we describe a novel device to quantify the movements of small animals in response to sensory stimulation.

Inconsistent sexual signaling degrades optimal mating decisions in animals.

Like political stump speeches and product advertisements, animal signals are highly repetitive and function to persuade receivers to adopt behaviors benefiting the signaler. And like potential constituents and consumers, receivers assess signals to inform their behavioral decisions. However, inconsistency in sexual signals is widespread and potentially injects uncertainty into mating decisions.

The paradox of hearing at the lek: auditory sensitivity increases after breeding in female gray treefrogs (Hyla chrysoscelis).

Both behavioral receptivity and neural sensitivity to acoustic mate attraction signals vary across the reproductive cycle, particularly in seasonally breeding animals. Across a variety of taxa receptivity to signals increases, as does peripheral auditory sensitivity, as females transition from a non-breeding to breeding condition. We recently documented decreases in receptivity to acoustic mate attraction signals and circulating hormone levels, but an increase in peripheral auditory sensitivity to call-like stimuli following oviposition in Cope's gray treefrogs (Hyla chrysoscelis).

Spatially Resolved Headspace Extractions of Trace-Level Volatiles from Planar Surfaces for High-Throughput Quantitation and Mass Spectral Imaging.

The use of headspace thin-film microextraction devices (SPMESH) for parallel extraction of trace-level volatiles prior to direct analysis in real-time mass spectrometry (DART-MS) has been reported previously, in which volatiles were extracted from samples in multi-well plates. In this report, we demonstrate that headspace extraction of volatiles by SPMESH sheets can be performed directly from planar surfaces. When coupled with DART-MS, this approach yields volatile mass spectral images with at least 4 mm resolution.

The difference a day makes: Breeding remodels hearing, hormones and behavior in female Cope's gray treefrogs (Hyla chrysoscelis).

In seasonal breeders, there are behavioral, endocrine, and neural adaptations that promote the sexual receptivity of females and tune their sensory systems to detect and discriminate among advertising males and to successfully copulate. What happens immediately after this key life history event is unclear, but this transitional moment offers a window into the mechanisms that remodel sexual phenotypes. In this study of wild female Cope's gray treefrogs (Hyla chrysoscelis), we tested the hypothesis that oviposition results in a suite of coordinated changes in the sexual phenotype.

Masking release in temporally fluctuating noise depends on comodulation and overall level in Cope's gray treefrog.

Many animals communicate acoustically in large social aggregations. Among the best studied are frogs, in which males form large breeding choruses where they produce loud vocalizations to attract mates. Although chorus noise poses significant challenges to communication, it also possesses features, such as comodulation in amplitude fluctuations, that listeners may be evolutionarily adapted to exploit in order to achieve release from masking.

Parallel Headspace Extraction onto Etched Sorbent Sheets Prior to Ambient-Ionization Mass Spectrometry for Automated, Trace-Level Volatile Analyses.

Headspace (HS) extraction and preconcentration of volatiles by solid-phase microextraction (SPME) can improve the sensitivity and selectivity of ambient ionization-mass spectrometry approaches like direct analysis in real time (DART), but previous approaches to HS-SPME-DART-MS have been challenging to automate. This report describes the production of inexpensive, reusable solid-phase mesh-enhanced sorption from headspace (SPMESH) sheets by laser-etching mesh patterns into poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) sheets. Parallel headspace extraction of volatiles from multiple samples can be achieved by positioning the SPMESH sheets over multiwell plates and then attaching to a positioning stage for automated DART-MS quantitation.