Variation in swim bladder drumming sounds from three doradid catfish species with similar sonic morphologies

Abstract

A variety of teleost fishes produce sounds for communication by vibrating the swim bladder with fast contracting muscles. Doradid catfishes have an elastic spring apparatus (ESA) for sound production. Contractions of the ESA protractor muscle pull the anterior transverse process of the 4th vertebra or Müllerian ramus (MR) to expand the swim bladder and elasticity of the MR returns the swim bladder to the resting state. In this study, we examined the sound characteristics and associated fine structure of the protractor drumming muscles of three doradid species: Acanthodoras cataphractus, Platydoras hancockii and Agamyxis pectinifrons. Despite large variations in size, sounds from all three species had similar mean dominant rates ranging from 91 to 131 Hz and showed frequencies related to muscle contraction speed rather than fish size. Sounds differed among species in terms of waveform shape and their rate of amplitude modulation. In addition, multiple distinguishable sound types were observed from each species: three sound types from A. cataphractus and P. hancockii, and two sound types from A. pectinifrons. Although sounds differed among species, no differences in muscle fiber fine structure were observed at the species level. Drumming muscles from each species bear features associated with fast contractions, including sarcoplasmic cores, thin radial myofibrils, abundant mitochondria and an elaborated sarcoplasmic reticulum. These results indicate that sound differences between doradids are not due to swimbladder size, muscle anatomy, muscle length or Müllerian ramus shape, but instead result from differences in neural activation of sonic muscles.

‘Posidonia meadows calling’: a ubiquitous fish sound with monitoring potential

“…; Boyle et al. ) that generally corresponds to the contraction rate of the sonic muscle (Zelick et al. ).…”

Consistency of spatiotemporal sound features supports the use of passive acoustics for long‐term monitoring

“…The comparison with other taxa indicates that the ratio occupied by myofibril area relative to the total muscle fibre cross‐section can be indicator of the drumming muscle. Sciaena umbra , different catfish species and piranhas are all able to realize high‐speed contractions (Boyle, Colleye & Parmentier, ; Millot & Parmentier, ; Boyle, Bolen & Parmentier, ; Boyle et al ., ) and all have in cross‐section a myofibril area that corresponds to between 45 and 60% of the muscle cell diameter. In comparison, this ratio corresponds to 76% in the white epaxial muscle in Pygocentrus nattereri (Millot & Parmentier, ) and is around 80% in S. umbra (E. Parmentier, pers.…”

Unusual sound production mechanism in the triggerfishRhinecanthus aculeatus(Balistidae)

“…In most of the fishes that use a swimbladder for sound production, calls result from high-speed muscles whose contraction rate corresponds to the fundamental frequency of the call (Boyle et al, 2015;Fine et al, 2001;Parmentier et al, 2011). Alternatively, swimbladder walls can be stretched before rapid release in order to provoke sound production (Kéver et al, 2014;Parmentier et al, 2003Parmentier et al, , 2010.…”