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Is the Frequency Content of the Calls in North American Treefrogs Limited by Their Larynges?

A high diversity of mating calls is found among frogs. The calls of most species, however, are simple, in comparison to those of mammals and birds. In order to determine if the mechanics of the larynx could explain the simplicity of treefrog calls, the larynges of euthanized males were activated wit...

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Autor principal: Gridi-Papp, Marcos
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4190124/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25332838
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/198069
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author Gridi-Papp, Marcos
author_facet Gridi-Papp, Marcos
author_sort Gridi-Papp, Marcos
collection PubMed
description A high diversity of mating calls is found among frogs. The calls of most species, however, are simple, in comparison to those of mammals and birds. In order to determine if the mechanics of the larynx could explain the simplicity of treefrog calls, the larynges of euthanized males were activated with airflow. Laryngeal airflow, sound frequency, and sound intensity showed a positive direct relationship with the driving air pressure. While the natural calls of the studied species exhibit minimal frequency modulation, their larynges produced about an octave of frequency modulation in response to varying pulmonary pressure. Natural advertisement calls are produced near the higher extreme of frequency obtained in the laboratory and at a slightly higher intensity (6 dB). Natural calls also exhibit fewer harmonics than artificial ones, because the larynges were activated with the mouth of the animal open. The results revealed that treefrog larynges allow them to produce calls spanning a much greater range of frequencies than observed in nature; therefore, the simplicity of the calls is not due to a limited frequency range of laryngeal output. Low frequencies are produced at low intensities, however, and this could explain why treefrogs concentrate their calling at the high frequencies.
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spelling pubmed-41901242014-10-20 Is the Frequency Content of the Calls in North American Treefrogs Limited by Their Larynges? Gridi-Papp, Marcos Int J Evol Biol Research Article A high diversity of mating calls is found among frogs. The calls of most species, however, are simple, in comparison to those of mammals and birds. In order to determine if the mechanics of the larynx could explain the simplicity of treefrog calls, the larynges of euthanized males were activated with airflow. Laryngeal airflow, sound frequency, and sound intensity showed a positive direct relationship with the driving air pressure. While the natural calls of the studied species exhibit minimal frequency modulation, their larynges produced about an octave of frequency modulation in response to varying pulmonary pressure. Natural advertisement calls are produced near the higher extreme of frequency obtained in the laboratory and at a slightly higher intensity (6 dB). Natural calls also exhibit fewer harmonics than artificial ones, because the larynges were activated with the mouth of the animal open. The results revealed that treefrog larynges allow them to produce calls spanning a much greater range of frequencies than observed in nature; therefore, the simplicity of the calls is not due to a limited frequency range of laryngeal output. Low frequencies are produced at low intensities, however, and this could explain why treefrogs concentrate their calling at the high frequencies. Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2014 2014-09-23 /pmc/articles/PMC4190124/ /pubmed/25332838 http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/198069 Text en Copyright © 2014 Marcos Gridi-Papp. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Gridi-Papp, Marcos
Is the Frequency Content of the Calls in North American Treefrogs Limited by Their Larynges?
title Is the Frequency Content of the Calls in North American Treefrogs Limited by Their Larynges?
title_full Is the Frequency Content of the Calls in North American Treefrogs Limited by Their Larynges?
title_fullStr Is the Frequency Content of the Calls in North American Treefrogs Limited by Their Larynges?
title_full_unstemmed Is the Frequency Content of the Calls in North American Treefrogs Limited by Their Larynges?
title_short Is the Frequency Content of the Calls in North American Treefrogs Limited by Their Larynges?
title_sort is the frequency content of the calls in north american treefrogs limited by their larynges?
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4190124/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25332838
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/198069
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