José Miguel Simões

José Miguel Simões
Northwestern University | NU · Department of Neurobiology

MSc, Phd

About

24
Publications
5,218
Reads
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813
Citations
Additional affiliations
March 2016 - present
Northwestern University
Position
  • Fellow
September 2011 - February 2016
ISPA - Instituto Universitário
Position
  • Professor (Assistant)
September 2012 - present
ISPA - Instituto Universitário
Position
  • Professor (Assistant)

Publications

Publications (24)
Article
Full-text available
Neurons that participate in sensory processing often display “ON” responses, i.e., fire transiently at the onset of a stimulus. ON transients are widespread, perhaps universal to sensory coding, yet their function is not always well-understood. Here, we show that ON responses in the Drosophila thermosensory system extrapolate the trajectory of temp...
Preprint
Full-text available
Neurons that participate in sensory processing often display ON responses, i.e. fire transiently at the onset of a stimulus. ON transients are widespread, perhaps universal to sensory coding, yet their function is not always well-understood. Here, we show that ON responses in the Drosophila thermosensory system extrapolate the trajectory of tempera...
Article
Full-text available
Simple innate behavior is often described as hard-wired and largely inflexible. Here, we show that the avoidance of hot temperature, a simple innate behavior, contains unexpected plasticity in Drosophila. First, we demonstrate that hot receptor neurons of the antenna and their molecular heat sensor, Gr28B.d, are essential for flies to produce escap...
Article
Full-text available
Significance Within social groups, there are animals of different social status that express different behavioral profiles that are paralleled by different patterns of gene expression in the brain. However, social status is not fixed, but rather depends on social interactions; hence, group living animals must be able to switch between different sta...
Article
Full-text available
Social plasticity is a pervasive feature of animal behavior. Animals adjust the expression of their social behavior to the daily changes in social life and to transitions between life-history stages, and this ability has an impact in their Darwinian fitness. This behavioral plasticity may be achieved either by rewiring or by biochemically switching...
Article
Full-text available
The African cichlid Oreochromis mossambicus (Mozambique tilapia) has been used as a model system in a wide range of behavioural and neurobiological studies. The increasing number of genetic tools available for this species, together with the emerging interest in its use for neurobiological studies, increased the need for an accurate hodological map...
Article
Full-text available
Male Lusitanian toadfish, Halobatrachus didactylus, are territorial and have a wide acoustic repertoire. The sound production apparatus consists of a pair of intrinsic large sonic muscles on the two lobes of the swimbladder. Sonic muscle activity and the variability of the vocalizations were related using electromyograms (EMGs). EMG electrodes were...
Article
Full-text available
Choruses have been described mostly in birds, anurans and insects but have been poorly studied in fish. Research in batrachoidid (toadfishes) species suggest vocal facilitation among neighbouring males, but whether chorusing fish present more complex interactions is unknown. In this study, we test the hypothesis that chorusing fish males compete ac...
Article
Full-text available
Aggression is a key component of the behavioral repertoire of animals that impacts on their Darwinian fitness. The available genetic tools in zebrafish make this species a promising vertebrate neurogenetic model for the study of neural circuits underlying aggressive behavior. For this purpose, a detailed characterization of the aggressive behavior...
Article
Full-text available
Signal attributes should show different degrees of variability depending on the information to be conveyed. Species identity is usually associated with stereotyped features of a signal, whereas other types of information such as individual quality and motivation are associated with signal plasticity. Lusitanian toadfish males form aggregations duri...
Article
Full-text available
Lusitanian toadfish males that provide parental care rely on acoustic signals (the boatwhistle) to attract females to their nest. We test the hypothesis that male quality, namely male size and condition that are relevant for parental success, is reflected in vocal activity and boatwhistle characteristics and thus advertised to females. We recorded...
Article
Male signals are frequently studied in a single behavioral context, but in some cases they may assist multiple functions, namely for both male–male competition and female mate choice. Boatwhistles are known as the mate attraction calls of toadfishes typically produced during the breeding season. However, recent observations with the Lusitanian toad...
Article
Full-text available
Boatwhistles produced by the toadfish Halobatrachus didactylus seem to function as mate attraction calls during the breeding season. Recent observations, however, indicate that their emission is not restricted to this period, suggesting that boatwhistles may have other functions. The possible dual function of boatwhistles was tested by eliciting so...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Male Lusitanian toadfish, Halobatrachus didactylus, are territorial and have a wide acoustic repertoire. The sound production apparatus consists of a pair of intrinsic large sonic muscles on the two lobes of the swimbladder. Sonic muscle activity and the variability of the vocalizations were related using electromyograms (EMGs). EMG electrodes were...
Article
Full-text available
In some marine fishes, males migrate from deeper to littoral water to breed, where they defend nests and provide parental care. In this study, we describe seasonal patterns of shelter occupation in estuarine shallow waters and assess social aggregation in the Lusitanian toadfish (Batrachoididae), a vocal species with male parental care. Occupation...
Article
Full-text available
Courtship and agonistic interactions in an African cichlid species present a richer diversity of acoustic stimuli than previously reported. Male cichlids, including those from the genus Pseudotropheus (P.), produce low frequency short pulsed sounds during courtship. Sounds emitted by P. zebra males in the early stages of courtship (during quiver) w...
Article
Full-text available
The Lusitanian toadfish Halobatrachus didactylus (Bloch & Schneider) (Batrachoididae) is a well-known sound producer that has an unusual large acoustic repertoire for fish. This repertoire consists so far of five distinct sound categories: boatwhistles, grunt trains, croaks, double croaks and a mixed grunt–croak call. Sixteen males that spontaneous...
Article
This study describes a new courtship sound (moan) produced by Pseudotropheus spp. males, not previously reported for cichlids. Moans are short tonal sounds often showing frequency modulation. This sound type is of very low amplitude and is produced when males swim in close proximity to a female, usually before performing more exuberant behavioural...
Article
Full-text available
Male courtship acoustic signals from five Lake Malawi cichlid fish species of the Pseudotropheus zebra complex were recorded and compared. Sounds made by males of P. zebra, Pseudotropheus callainos and the undescribed species known as Pseudotropheus ‘zebra gold’ from Nkhata Bay, and Pseudotropheus emmiltos and Pseudotropheus faizilberi from Mphanga...

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