Look who's talking now: The fishes!
Widespread sound communication among fish

Date:
January 27, 2022
Source:
Cornell University
Summary:
A new study finds that fish are far more likely to communicate
with sound than generally thought.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== There's a whole lot of talking going on beneath the waves. A new study
from Cornell University finds that fish are far more likely to communicate
with sound than generally thought -- and some fish have been doing this
for at least 155 million years. These findings were just published in
the journal Ichthyology & Herpetology.


========================================================================== "We've known for a long time that some fish make sounds," said
lead author Aaron Rice, a researcher at the K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. "But fish
sounds were always perceived as rare oddities. We wanted to know if
these were one-offs or if there was a broader pattern for acoustic communication in fishes." The authors looked at a branch of fishes
called the ray-finned fishes. These are vertebrates (having a backbone)
that comprise 99% of the world's known species of fishes. They found
175 families that contain two-thirds of fish species that do, or are
likely to, communicate with sound. By examining the fish family tree,
study authors found that sound was so important, it evolved at least 33 separate times over millions of years.

"Thanks to decades of basic research on the evolutionary relationships of fishes, we can now explore many questions about how different functions
and behaviors evolved in the approximately 35,000 known species of
fishes," said co-author William E. Bemis '76, Cornell professor of
ecology and evolutionary biology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. "We're getting away from a strictly human-centric way of
thinking. What we learn could give us some insight on the drivers of
sound communication and how it continues to evolve." The scientists
used three sources of information: existing recordings and scientific
papers describing fish sounds; the known anatomy of a fish - - whether
they have the right tools for making sounds, such as certain bones, an
air bladder, and sound-specific muscles; and references in 19th century literature before underwater microphones were invented.

"Sound communication is often overlooked within fishes, yet they make
up more than half of all living vertebrate species," said Andrew Bass,
co-lead author and the Horace White Professor of Neurobiology and Behavior
in the College of Arts and Sciences. "They've probably been overlooked
because fishes are not easily heard or seen, and the science of underwater acoustic communication has primarily focused on whales and dolphins. But
fishes have voices, too!" What are the fish talking about? Pretty much
the same things we all talk about -- sex and food. Rice says the fish
are either trying to attract a mate, defend a food source or territory,
or let others know where they are. Even some of the common names for fish
are based on the sounds they make, such as grunts, croakers, hog fish, squeaking catfish, trumpeters, and many more.

Rice intends to keep tracking the discovery of sound in fish species and
add them to his growing database (see supplemental material, Table S1) --
a project he began 20 years ago with study co-authors Ingrid Kaatz '85, MS
'92, and Philip Lobel, a professor of biology at Boston University. Their collaboration has continued and expanded since Rice came to Cornell.

"This introduces sound communication to so many more groups than we ever thought," said Rice. "Fish do everything. They breathe air, they fly,
they eat anything and everything -- at this point, nothing would surprise
me about fishes and the sounds that they can make." The research was
partly funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S.

Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the Tontogany Creek Fund, and the
Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Cornell_University. Original written
by Pat Leonard, courtesy of the Cornell Chronicle. Note: Content may be
edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Related Multimedia:
* Audio_of_fish_calls ========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Aaron N. Rice, Stacy C. Farina, Andrea J. Makowski, Ingrid M. Kaatz,
Phillip S. Lobel, William E. Bemis, Andrew H. Bass. Evolutionary
Patterns in Sound Production across Fishes. Ichthyology &
Herpetology, 2022; 110 (1) DOI: 10.1643/i2020172 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/01/220127172640.htm

--- up 7 weeks, 5 days, 7 hours, 13 minutes
* Origin: -=> Castle Rock BBS <=- Now Husky HPT Powered! (1:317/3)