No abstract

alpha-tectorin is an extracellular matrix molecule of the inner ear. Mice homozygous for a targeted deletion in a-tectorin have tectorial membranes that are detached from the cochlear epithelium and lack all noncollagenous matrix, but the architecture of the organ of Corti is otherwise normal. The basilar membranes of wild-type and alpha-tectorin mutant mice are tuned, but the alpha-tectorin mutants are 35 dB less sensitive. Basilar membrane responses of wild-type mice exhibit a second resonance, indicating that the tectorial membrane provides an inertial mass against which outer hair cells can exert forces. Cochlear microphonics recorded in alpha-tectorin mutants differ in both phase and symmetry relative to those of wild-type mice. Thus, the tectorial membrane ensures that outer hair cells can effectively respond to basilar membrane motion and that feedback is delivered with the appropriate gain and timing required for amplification.

SUMMARY1. Intracellular recordings were made from inner hair cells in the first turn of the guinea-pig cochlea, the recording sites being confirmed by the injection of Procion yellow dye and subsequent histology.2. The receptor potential, in response to a pure tone burst, consisted of an AC response which followed the wave form of the stimulus and was analogous to the extracellularly recorded cochlear microphonic and a depolarizing DC response which followed the envelope of the tone burst and was analogous to the extracellularly recorded summating potential.

Sexual recognition through wing-beat frequency matching was first demonstrated in Toxorhynchites brevipalpis, where wing-beat frequencies of males and females are similar. Here we show frequency matching in Culex quinquefasciatus, where the wing-beat frequencies of males and females differ considerably. The wing-beat frequencies converge not on the fundamental but on the nearest shared harmonic (usually female's third and male's second). Frequencies in this range are, however, too high to elicit phasic sensory-neural responses from the Johnston's organ (JO) or to drive the mosquito's motor neurons. Potential cues for frequency matching are difference tones produced by nonlinear mixing of male and female flight tones in the vibrations of the mosquito's antennae. Receptor potentials and neural-motor activity were recorded in response to difference tones produced when a mosquito was stimulated simultaneously by two tones at frequencies outside the phasic response range of the JO but within range of the antennal vibrations. We demonstrate sexual recognition through matching of flight-tone harmonics in Culex mosquitoes and suggest that difference tones are used as an error signal for frequency matching beyond the frequency range of the JO's sensory-neural range. This is the first report of acoustic distortion being exploited as a sensory cue, rather than existing as an epiphenomenon.

Anopheles gambiae, responsible for the majority of malaria deaths annually, is a complex of seven species and several chromosomal/molecular forms. The complexity of malaria epidemiology and control is due in part to An. gambiae's remarkable genetic plasticity, enabling its adaptation to a range of human-influenced habitats. This leads to rapid ecological speciation when reproductive isolation mechanisms develop [1-6]. Although reproductive isolation is essential for speciation, little is known about how it occurs in sympatric populations of incipient species [2]. We show that in such a population of "M" and "S" molecular forms, a novel mechanism of sexual recognition (male-female flight-tone matching [7-9]) also confers the capability of mate recognition, an essential precursor to assortative mating; frequency matching occurs more consistently in same-form pairs than in mixed-form pairs (p = 0.001). [corrected] Furthermore, the key to frequency matching is "difference tones" produced in the nonlinear vibrations of the antenna by the combined flight tones of a pair of mosquitoes and detected by the Johnston's organ. By altering their wing-beat frequencies to minimize these difference tones, mosquitoes can match flight-tone harmonic frequencies above their auditory range. This is the first description of close-range mating interactions in incipient An. gambiae species.