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Oilbirds produce echolocation signals beyond their best hearing range and adjust signal design to natural light conditions
Oilbirds are active at night, foraging for fruits using keen olfaction and extremely light-sensitive eyes, and echolocate as they leave and return to their cavernous roosts. We recorded the echolocation behaviour of wild oilbirds using a multi-microphone array as they entered and exited their roosts...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
The Royal Society Publishing
2017
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5451837/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28573036 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.170255 |
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author | Brinkløv, Signe Elemans, Coen P. H. Ratcliffe, John M. |
author_facet | Brinkløv, Signe Elemans, Coen P. H. Ratcliffe, John M. |
author_sort | Brinkløv, Signe |
collection | PubMed |
description | Oilbirds are active at night, foraging for fruits using keen olfaction and extremely light-sensitive eyes, and echolocate as they leave and return to their cavernous roosts. We recorded the echolocation behaviour of wild oilbirds using a multi-microphone array as they entered and exited their roosts under different natural light conditions. During echolocation, the birds produced click bursts (CBs) lasting less than 10 ms and consisting of a variable number (2–8) of clicks at 2–3 ms intervals. The CBs have a bandwidth of 7–23 kHz at −6 dB from signal peak frequency. We report on two unique characteristics of this avian echolocation system. First, oilbirds reduce both the energy and number of clicks in their CBs under conditions of clear, moonlit skies, compared with dark, moonless nights. Second, we document a frequency mismatch between the reported best frequency of oilbird hearing (approx. 2 kHz) and the bandwidth of their echolocation CBs. This unusual signal-to-sensory system mismatch probably reflects avian constraints on high-frequency hearing but may still allow oilbirds fine-scale, close-range detail resolution at the upper extreme (approx. 10 kHz) of their presumed hearing range. Alternatively, oilbirds, by an as-yet unknown mechanism, are able to hear frequencies higher than currently appreciated. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5451837 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2017 |
publisher | The Royal Society Publishing |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-54518372017-06-01 Oilbirds produce echolocation signals beyond their best hearing range and adjust signal design to natural light conditions Brinkløv, Signe Elemans, Coen P. H. Ratcliffe, John M. R Soc Open Sci Biology (Whole Organism) Oilbirds are active at night, foraging for fruits using keen olfaction and extremely light-sensitive eyes, and echolocate as they leave and return to their cavernous roosts. We recorded the echolocation behaviour of wild oilbirds using a multi-microphone array as they entered and exited their roosts under different natural light conditions. During echolocation, the birds produced click bursts (CBs) lasting less than 10 ms and consisting of a variable number (2–8) of clicks at 2–3 ms intervals. The CBs have a bandwidth of 7–23 kHz at −6 dB from signal peak frequency. We report on two unique characteristics of this avian echolocation system. First, oilbirds reduce both the energy and number of clicks in their CBs under conditions of clear, moonlit skies, compared with dark, moonless nights. Second, we document a frequency mismatch between the reported best frequency of oilbird hearing (approx. 2 kHz) and the bandwidth of their echolocation CBs. This unusual signal-to-sensory system mismatch probably reflects avian constraints on high-frequency hearing but may still allow oilbirds fine-scale, close-range detail resolution at the upper extreme (approx. 10 kHz) of their presumed hearing range. Alternatively, oilbirds, by an as-yet unknown mechanism, are able to hear frequencies higher than currently appreciated. The Royal Society Publishing 2017-05-24 /pmc/articles/PMC5451837/ /pubmed/28573036 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.170255 Text en © 2017 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Biology (Whole Organism) Brinkløv, Signe Elemans, Coen P. H. Ratcliffe, John M. Oilbirds produce echolocation signals beyond their best hearing range and adjust signal design to natural light conditions |
title | Oilbirds produce echolocation signals beyond their best hearing range and adjust signal design to natural light conditions |
title_full | Oilbirds produce echolocation signals beyond their best hearing range and adjust signal design to natural light conditions |
title_fullStr | Oilbirds produce echolocation signals beyond their best hearing range and adjust signal design to natural light conditions |
title_full_unstemmed | Oilbirds produce echolocation signals beyond their best hearing range and adjust signal design to natural light conditions |
title_short | Oilbirds produce echolocation signals beyond their best hearing range and adjust signal design to natural light conditions |
title_sort | oilbirds produce echolocation signals beyond their best hearing range and adjust signal design to natural light conditions |
topic | Biology (Whole Organism) |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5451837/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28573036 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.170255 |
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