Courtship Sounds Advertise Species Identity and Male Quality in Sympatric Pomatoschistus spp. Gobies

Abstract

Acoustic signals can encode crucial information about species identity and individual quality. We recorded and compared male courtship drum sounds of the sand goby Pomatoschistus minutus and the painted goby P. pictus and examined if they can function in species recognition within sympatric populations. We also examined which acoustic features are related to male quality and the factors that affect female courtship in the sand goby, to determine whether vocalisations potentially play a role in mate assessment. Drums produced by the painted goby showed significantly higher dominant frequencies, higher sound pulse repetition rates and longer intervals between sounds than those of the sand goby. In the sand goby, male quality was predicted by visual and acoustic courtship signals. Regression analyses showed that sound amplitude was a good predictor of male length, whereas the duration of nest behaviour and active calling rate (i.e. excluding silent periods) were good predictors of male condition factor and fat reserves respectively. In addition, the level of female courtship was predicted by male nest behaviour. The results suggest that the frequency and temporal patterns of sounds can encode species identity, whereas sound amplitude and calling activity reflects male size and fat reserves. Visual courtship duration (nest-related behaviour) also seems relevant to mate choice, since it reflects male condition and is related to female courtship. Our work suggests that acoustic communication can contribute to mate choice in the sand goby group, and invites further study.

Fish Sounds and Mate Choice

“…and in the Lusitanian toadfish H. didactylus ( Fig. 1.5; Amorim et al 2010Amorim et al , 2013aPedroso et al 2013). In Pomatoschistus the relation between body lipid reserves and calling activity was detected in 20 min periods whereas in H. didactylus calling activity was monitored over approximately 2 weeks, suggesting that body energetic reserves are strongly constraining both intense calling bouts and sustained calling activity in these fishes.…”

“…1.1; Lugli and Fine 2003). However, goby mating sounds still provide information on location, gender, and species identity of the sender (Malavasi et al 2008;Pedroso et al 2013) and sound playback elicits conspecific attraction (Tavolga 1958;Lugli et al 1996;Rollo and Higgs 2008). As many vocal fish live in shallow waters and emit low-frequency sounds with short-range propagation (e.g.…”

“…In small gobies of the genus Pomatoschistus and in the Lusitanian toadfish H. didactylus, mating sound duration (higher number of pulses) is positively related with the male condition factor (Fulton condition factor; Amorim et al 2010Amorim et al , 2013aPedroso et al 2013). In addition, pulse period, which corresponds to the sonic muscle contraction period, is negatively related with body fat reserves in the Lusitanian toadfish .…”

Acoustic and visual courtship traits in two sympatric marine Gobiidae species – Pomatoschistus microps and Pomatoschistus minutus

“…In the so called 'sand goby group' (family Gobiidae, Huyse et al 2004), at least eight species have been shown to produce low frequency acoustic pulses in a reproductive context (Malavasi et al 2012;Bolgan et al 2013;Pedroso et al 2013;de Jong et al 2016) two-spotted goby Gobiusculus flavescens (Fabricius, 1779), Adriatic dwarf goby Knipowitschia panizzae (Verga, 1841), Italian spring goby Knipowitschia punctatissima (Canestrini, 1864) canestrini's goby Pomatoschistus c a n e s t r i n i ( N i n n i , 1 8 8 3 ) , m a r b l e d g o b y Pomatoschistus marmoratus (Risso, 1810), common goby Pomatoschistus microps (Krøyer, 1838) (one individual only), sand goby Pomatoschistus minutus (Pallas, 1770) and painted gobyPomatoschistus pictus (Malm, 1865). The functions of these sounds are still unknown, but they have been proposed to be used in male courtship and female choice (Lugli and Torricelli 1999;Lindström and Lugli 2000;Pedroso et al 2013), or in species recognition .…”

How effective are acoustic signals in territorial defence in the Lusitanian toadfish?

“…Ladich, 1998;Myrberg et al, 1993;Lobel and Mann, 1995;Connaughton et al, 2000), louder (Ladich, 1998;Connaughton et al, 2000;Lindström and Lugli, 2000;Amorim et al, 2013) and longer sounds (Wysocki and Ladich, 2001;Amorim and Hawkins, 2005;Amorim and Neves, 2008) than smaller individuals. Also, the level of calling activity may reflect the amount of fat reserves (Amorim et al, 2010aPedroso et al, 2013).…”