Full Description

"Nesting male midshipman generate both long duration (>1 min) sinusoidal-like ‘‘hums’’ and short duration ‘‘grunts.’’ The hums of neighboring males often overlap, creating beat waveforms. Presentation of humlike, single tone stimuli, but not grunts or noise, elicited robust attraction ~phonotaxis! by gravid females."

"Whereas certain single-source beats reduced stimulus attractiveness, beats which resolved into unmodulated tones at their sources did not affect preference."

"When a female enters his nest, a male stops humming, and spawning may begin."

"Midshipman hums can be continuous for minutes to an hour or more, often with minimal variation in frequency or amplitude (Ibara et al., 1983; Brantley and Bass, 1994; Bass et al., in press). Hum fundamental frequency is linearly related to water temperature, increasing about 5 Hz/°C, and is approximately 100 Hz at 16 °C (Brantley and Bass, 1994; also see Bass and Baker, 1991)."

"Midshipman also produce brief (50–200 ms) ‘‘grunt’’ sounds (Fig. 1D–F) that probably serve an agonistic function. Both females and type II males have been recorded making infrequent, single grunts; but only type I males produce trains of grunts (Fig. 1D–F), emitted, during aquarium observations, in response to intruder males (Brantley and Bass, 1994)."

"First, this study supports the conclusion of Ibara et al. ~1983! that the plainfin midshipman hum functions as a mate call, and extends that finding by describing the phonotactic response of both male morphs as well as of gravid females. Second, results from one and two-choice tests show that female midshipman fish respond selectively to audible sounds and are capable of differentiating and choosing between acoustic signals that differ in duration, frequency, amplitude, and spectral/temporal content."

Observation Environment Quotes

"Fish were held for at least 24 h prior to testing in outdoor, running sea water tanks at the University of California Bodega Marine Laboratory, where all experiments were conducted."

Behaviour Description Quotes

"Nesting male midshipman generate both long duration (>1 min) sinusoidal-like ‘‘hums’’ and short duration ‘‘grunts.’’ The hums of neighboring males often overlap, creating beat waveforms. Presentation of humlike, single tone stimuli, but not grunts or noise, elicited robust attraction (phonotaxis) by gravid females. "

"When a female enters his nest, a male stops humming, and spawning may begin."

"This finding, along with aquarium observations of midshipman nesting behavior (Brantley and Bass, 1994), suggests the hum functions as a mate call. ' 'Midshipman also produce brief (50–200 ms) ‘‘grunt’’ sounds (Fig. 1D–F) that probably serve an agonistic function."

Sound Name Quotes

"Nesting male midshipman generate both long duration (>1 min) sinusoidal-like ‘‘hums’’ and short duration ‘‘grunts.’’ The hums of neighboring males often overlap, creating beat waveforms. Presentation of humlike, single tone stimuli, but not grunts or noise, elicited robust attraction (phonotaxis) by gravid females."