Full Description

"Both sexes of toadfish produce a variety of grunts associated with agnostic contexts while only males produce boatwhistles which have an initial broadband grunt-like segment, followed by a tonal portion (Maruska and Mensinger, 2009). At the beginning of the mating season, in late May to early June, male toadfish establish a nest and produce trains of boatwhistles to announce territorial ownership and position to other males as well as attract females into their nests (Fish, 1972; Winn, 1972)."

"Additionally, toadfish were found to produce vocalizations varying in pulse structure, duration and frequency components, suggesting toadfish have a complex acoustic communication system (Maruska and Mensinger, 2009)."

"Very few boatwhistles were observed to overlap however no clear pattern of call sequence was noted in calling individuals (Supplementary Fig. S8)."

"In Eel Pond, the highest number of boatwhistles were detected during the dusk (41.3%) and night (52.3%) recordings (Fig. 6, Table 1), with an increase in the number of boatwhistles occurring around 1830 (Fig. 7)."

"Call number varied throughout the day with higher numbers of boatwhistles during dusk and night recordings."

"The communication space of oyster toadfish has previously been speculated as ~10 m during recordings taken in Florida (Fish, 1964), but water depth and sediment type was unspecified. A communication space of ~5 m was given for toadfish in 1-m water depth with sandy-silt substrate (Fine and Lenhardt, 1983). However, it was stated by the authors of this study that some of the boatwhistle frequencies would be below the absolute cut-off frequency (~1000 Hz) (Fine and Lenhardt, 1983) meaning theoretically acoustic propagation cannot be measured and accurate recordings of sound cannot be taken (Officer, 1958)."

"The radiation pattern of the sound source, in this case the toadfish will also influence sound attenuation. The sound producing swimbladder in toadfish was described as a complex mixed sound radiator with monopole, dipole and quadrupole components (Fine et al., 2001)."

"It was found that toadfish increased the power spectral density of boatwhistles by 6.8 dB during and 8.7 dB re 1_Pa after playback of inboard and outboard motor noise in estuarine areas of North Carolina (Luczkovich et al., 2016)."

Observation Environment Quotes

"Oyster toadfish, Opsanus tau, vocalizations were recorded in situ from beneath the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) Marine Resources Center dock in Eel Pond, Woods Hole, MA (41° 31_32.28” N 70°40_16.74” W) (Fig. 1) northeastern USA, from Saturday July 8 14:23 to Sunday July 9, 2017 14:23."

Behaviour Description Quotes

"Both sexes of toadfish produce a variety of grunts associated with agnostic contexts while only males produce boatwhistles which have an initial broadband grunt-like segment, followed by a tonal portion (Maruska and Mensinger, 2009). At the beginning of the mating season, in late May to early June, male toadfish establish a nest and produce trains of boatwhistles to announce territorial ownership and position to other males as well as attract females into their nests (Fish, 1972; Winn, 1972)."

Sound Name Quotes

"Both sexes of toadfish produce a variety of grunts associated with agnostic contexts while only males produce boatwhistles which have an initial broadband grunt-like segment, followed by a tonal portion (Maruska and Mensinger, 2009). At the beginning of the mating season, in late May to early June, male toadfish establish a nest and produce trains of boatwhistles to announce territorial ownership and position to other males as well as attract females into their nests (Fish, 1972; Winn, 1972)."

"Additionally, as a single hydrophone consistently picked up distinct boatwhistles from the dock area, it was hypothesized that the toadfish were confined to this physical structure (Van Wert per comms.)."