Evolutionary divergence in acoustic signals: causes and consequences

Wilkins, Matthew R.; Seddon, Nathalie; Safran, Rebecca J.

doi:10.1016/j.tree.2012.10.002

Cited by 418 publications

(410 citation statements)

References 91 publications

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“…It is also supported by patterns in a much larger sample of the world's languages, including patterns within language families and among language isolates. Like the communication systems of avian species (60,61), it appears that human languages are environmentally adaptive. This is not necessarily surprising given the general adaptability of human behavior (62,63) and human biology (64,65) to cold climes and given the existence of other ecological effects on nonconscious patterns in human behavior (66).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate, vocal folds, and tonal languages: Connecting the physiological and geographic dots

Everett

Blasí

Roberts

2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

147

110

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We summarize a number of findings in laryngology demonstrating that perturbations of phonation, including increased jitter and shimmer, are associated with desiccated ambient air. We predict that, given the relative imprecision of vocal fold vibration in desiccated versus humid contexts, arid and cold ecologies should be less amenable, when contrasted to warm and humid ecologies, to the development of languages with phonemic tone, especially complex tone. This prediction is supported by data from two large independently coded databases representing 3,700+ languages. Languages with complex tonality have generally not developed in very cold or otherwise desiccated climates, in accordance with the physiologically based predictions. The predicted global geographic-linguistic association is shown to operate within continents, within major language families, and across language isolates. Our results offer evidence that human sound systems are influenced by environmental factors.climate | language | adaptation | tone A standard assumption in linguistics is that sound systems are immune to ecological effects (1). This presumption has been called into question by several recent studies providing evidence for a correlation between aspects of phonology (such as sonority) and climatic and geographic factors (such as temperature, plant cover, or terrain), as well as behaviors associated with such factors (2-9). Most recently, a correlation was uncovered between ejective sounds and regions of high elevation in a sample of nearly 600 languages (10). Although two plausible physiological motivations are offered in ref. 10 for the correlation between ejective use and reduced ambient air pressure, those explanations have yet to be supported by experimental evidence. The uncovered patterns could be epiphenomenal, and in general, the cross-linguistic statistical studies in question have not been buttressed by experimental support (11).In this study, we offer evidence for a negative correlation between linguistic tone and characteristic rates of desiccation in ambient air. In contradistinction to the aforementioned studies offering geographic/phonetic correlations, however, we suggest this correlation is predicted by extensive experimental research on the properties of the human larynx. This research, which has been conducted by numerous laryngologists over the last decade and a half, has not been previously tied to the distribution of the world's tonal languages. We submit that the research predicts that the relatively precise manipulation of the vocal folds associated with tone, especially complex tone, should be more difficult to achieve in arid climates-particularly very cold ones-when contrasted to warmer and more humid climates. We offer global, continental, and intralinguistic-family data consistent with the expected geographic/tonemic association. Our results cannot facilely be ascribed to well-known phylogenetic and areal relatedness. We conclude by suggesting that the most reasonable interpretation of the data is that the a...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate, vocal folds, and tonal languages: Connecting the physiological and geographic dots

Everett

Blasí

Roberts

2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

147

110

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“…From an evolutionary perspective, it is likely that sexual selection plays a primary role in acoustic divergence between populations and species of anurans and other animals (reviewed by Wilkins et al 2013), but environmental factors might be of considerable influence as well (e.g., Goutte et al 2013;Vargas-Salinas & Amézquita 2013).…”

Section: Intraspecific Variation In Frog Advertisement Callsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The use of bioacoustics in anuran taxonomy: theory, terminology, methods and recommendations for best practice

Köhler

Jansen

Rodríguez³

et al. 2017

Zootaxa

479

410

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Vocalizations of anuran amphibians have received much attention in studies of behavioral ecology and physiology, but also provide informative characters for identifying and delimiting species. We here review the terminology and variation of frog calls from a perspective of integrative taxonomy, and provide hands-on protocols for recording, analyzing, comparing, interpreting and describing these sounds. Our focus is on advertisement calls, which serve as premating isolation mechanisms and, therefore, convey important taxonomic information. We provide recommendations for terminology of frog vocalizations, with call, note and pulse being the fundamental subunits to be used in descriptions and comparisons. However, due to the complexity and diversity of these signals, an unequivocal application of the terms call and note can be challenging. We therefore provide two coherent concepts that either follow a note-centered approach (defining uninterrupted units of sound as notes, and their entirety as call) or a call-centered approach (defining uninterrupted units as call whenever they are separated by long silent intervals) in terminology. Based on surveys of literature, we show that numerous call traits can be highly variable within and between individuals of one species. Despite idiosyncrasies of species and higher taxa, the duration of calls or notes, pulse rate within notes, and number of pulses per note appear to be more static within individuals and somewhat less affected by temperature. Therefore, these variables might often be preferable as taxonomic characters over call rate or note rate, which are heavily influenced by various factors. Dominant frequency is also comparatively static and only weakly affected by temperature, but depends strongly on body size. As with other taxonomic characters, strong call divergence is typically indicative of species-level differences, whereas call similarities of two populations are no evidence for them being conspecific. Taxonomic conclusions can especially be drawn when the general advertisement call structure of two candidate species is radically different and qualitative call differences are thus observed. On the other hand, quantitative differences in call traits might substantially vary within and among conspecific populations, and require careful evaluation and analysis. We provide guidelines for the taxonomic interpretation of advertisement call differences in sympatric and allopatric situations, and emphasize the need for an integrative use of multiple datasets (bio-acoustics, morphology, genetics), particularly for allopatric scenarios. We show that small-sized frogs often emit calls with frequency components in the ultrasound spectrum, although it is unlikely that these high frequencies are of biological relevance for the majority of them, and we illustrate that detection of upper harmonics depends also on recording distance because higher frequencies are attenuated more strongly. Bioacoustics remains a prime approach in integrative taxonomy of anurans if uncertainty due to possible intraspecific variation and technical artifacts is adequately considered and acknowledged.

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“…However, the overwhelming majority of such studies have been focused on visual and acoustic signals (Gingras, Mohandesan, Boko, & Fitch, 2013; Huang & Rabosky, 2014; Santana, Alfaro, Noonan, & Alfaro, 2013; Wilkins, Seddon, & Safran, 2013). In contrast, comparative studies of chemical signals remain fundamentally ignored in most groups of organism (Kather & Martin, 2015; Symonds & Elgar, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heterogeneous tempo and mode of evolutionary diversification of compounds in lizard chemical signals

García‐Roa

Jara

López

et al. 2017

Ecology and Evolution

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Important part of the multivariate selection shaping social and interspecific interactions among and within animal species emerges from communication. Therefore, understanding the diversification of signals for animal communication is a central endeavor in evolutionary biology. Over the last decade, the rapid development of phylogenetic approaches has promoted a stream of studies investigating evolution of communication signals. However, comparative research has primarily focused on visual and acoustic signals, while the evolution of chemical signals remains largely unstudied. An increasing interest in understanding the evolution of chemical communication has been inspired by the realization that chemical signals underlie some of the major interaction channels in a wide range of organisms. In lizards, in particular, chemosignals play paramount roles in female choice and male–male competition, and during community assembly and speciation. Here, using phylogenetic macro‐evolutionary modeling, we show for the very first time that multiple compounds of scents for communication in lizards have diversified following highly different evolutionary speeds and trajectories. Our results suggest that cholesterol, α‐tocopherol, and cholesta‐5,7‐dien‐3‐ol have been subject to stabilizing selection (Ornstein–Uhlenbeck model), whereas the remaining compounds are better described by Brownian motion modes of evolution. Additionally, the diversification of the individual compounds has accumulated substantial relative disparity over time. Thus, our study reveals that the chemical components of lizard chemosignals have proliferated across different species following compound‐specific directions.

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Evolutionary divergence in acoustic signals: causes and consequences

Cited by 418 publications

References 91 publications

Climate, vocal folds, and tonal languages: Connecting the physiological and geographic dots

Climate, vocal folds, and tonal languages: Connecting the physiological and geographic dots

The use of bioacoustics in anuran taxonomy: theory, terminology, methods and recommendations for best practice

Heterogeneous tempo and mode of evolutionary diversification of compounds in lizard chemical signals

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