Effect of natural abiotic soil vibrations, rainfall and wind on anuran calling behavior: a test with captive-bred midwife toads (Alytes obstetricans).
J Comp Physiol A Neuroethol Sens Neural Behav Physiol
; 209(1): 105-113, 2023 01.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-36508004
ABSTRACT
Anurans are known to detect vibrations, but few studies explore relationships between vibrations and resultant behaviors. We studied the reaction of calling captive-bred male midwife toads (Alytes obstetricans) to the randomized playback of a vibrational crescendo stimulus train. We considered two sources of natural abiotic vibrational stimuli rainfall and wind. Rainfall was expected to induce calling and wind was expected to inhibit it. Playback experiments with two synthetic tones (200 Hz and 300 Hz) tested the sensitivity to pure tones and could possibly reveal a hearing sensitivity trend between these frequencies. The toads did not increase call rate in response to rainfall vibrations and only one of the five wind stimulus levels caused a significant decrease in call rate. This limited response could be explained, because the tested toads came from a captive population, where emergence may not be mediated by rainfall vibrations. We found that A. obstetricans is highly sensitive to very low frequencies, which could explain the sensitivity observed to vibrational stimuli. Playback of a random crescendo stimulus train proves to be a valid approach for addressing behavioral questions. However, the use of a captive population may have been a limitation in the clarity of the results.
Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Solo
/
Vibração
Tipo de estudo:
Clinical_trials
Limite:
Animals
Idioma:
En
Revista:
J Comp Physiol A Neuroethol Sens Neural Behav Physiol
Assunto da revista:
CIENCIAS DO COMPORTAMENTO
/
NEUROLOGIA
Ano de publicação:
2023
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Itália