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Hearing Sensitivity of the Painted Goby, Pomatoschistus pictus

DOI:10.1007/978-1-4419-7311-5_24
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Marta Bolgan at Ocean Science Consulting
Marta Bolgan
  • Ocean Science Consulting
Silvia S Pedroso
Silvia S Pedroso
Silvia S Pedroso
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Raquel Vasconcelos at University of Saint Joseph (Macao)
Raquel Vasconcelos
Joana M Jordão at ISPA Instituto Universitário
Joana M Jordão
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Abstract and Figures

Pomatoschistus pictus is a coastal and estuarine species that inhabits shallow gravel and sand ­substrate areas of the eastern Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea (Miller 1986). Studies on P. pictus show that, like in other species of this genus (Malavasi et al. 2008), males produce sounds during courtship and agonistic contexts (Amorim and Neves 2007, 2008).
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109
A.N. Popper and A. Hawkins (eds.), The Effects of Noise on Aquatic Life,
Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology 730, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-7311-5_24,
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012
M. Bolgan ()
Facoltà di Scienze Matematiche, Fisiche e Naturali, Dipartimento di Scienze della Vita-CSEE ,
University of Trieste , 34127 Trieste , Italy
e-mail: marta.bolgan@gmail.com
S. S. Pedroso • M. C. P. Amorim
Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada , Unidade de Investigação em Eco-Etologia , 1149–041 Lisbon , Portugal
R. O. Vasconcelos • J. M. Jordão • P. J. Fonseca
Centro de Biologia Ambiental, Departamento de Biologia Animal ,
Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa , 1749–016 Lisbon , Portugal
1 Introduction
Pomatoschistus pictus is a coastal and estuarine species that inhabits shallow gravel and sand
substrate areas of the eastern Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea (Miller 1986 ) . Studies on
P. pictus show that, like in other species of this genus (Malavasi et al. 2008 ) , males produce sounds
during courtship and agonistic contexts (Amorim and Neves 2007, 2008 ) .
The amount of anthropogenic noise pollution has been increasing significantly in the last decades
in coastal environments (Codarin et al. 2009 ; Ross 2005 ) . A noisy coastal environment may strongly
impact the ability of such a vocal species to communicate and, ultimately, reproduce. A first step in
understanding the impact of anthropogenic noise is to describe this species’ hearing sensitivity.
However, nothing has been described in terms of the auditory abilities of this genus to date. This
study presents the first data on the hearing sensitivity of P. pictus .
2 Materials and Methods
Six adult P. pictus were caught in April 2010 at Parede (38°41 ¢ N, 009°21 ¢ W), Portugal. The fish
were maintained in aquaria at 18 ± 1°C.
Hearing thresholds were estimated using the auditory evoked potential (AEP) recording technique.
Test subjects were mildly immobilized with 47.9 mg/g of pancuronium bromide diluted in teleost
saline solution. The subjects were placed just below the water surface of a plastic tank (diameter
36 cm, water depth 13 cm), 7 cm above the center of the underwater speaker disk. Fish respiration
was secured through a temperature-controlled (20 ± 1°C) gravity-fed seawater circulation system
Hearing Sensitivity of the Painted Goby,
Pomatoschistus pictus
Marta Bolgan, Silvia S. Pedroso, Raquel O. Vasconcelos,
Joana M. Jordão, M. Clara P. Amorim, and Paulo J. Fonseca
110 M. Bolgan et al.
using a micropipette tip inserted in the subject’s mouth. The experimental tank was positioned on a
vibration-insulated table surrounded by a Faraday cage.
The AEPs were recorded using platinum electrodes (diameter 1 mm). The recording electrode
was placed above the brain stem and the reference electrode was close to the nares. Electrode leads
were connected to a differential AC amplifier (CP 511, Grass Technologies). The AEP signal was
monitored with an oscilloscope and digitized using an analog-to-digital (A/D) converter (Edirol
UA25, Roland) connected to a personal computer running Adobe Audition 3.0 (Adobe Systems).
Sound stimuli were created with Adobe Audition 3.0 and consisted of tone pulses presented
1,000 times at opposite polarities. Hearing thresholds were estimated at 15 Hz with a repetition rate
of 5 s
-1 , 30 and 60 Hz with a repetition rate of 10 s
-1 , and 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 800, and 1,000 Hz
with a repetition rate of 20 s
-1 , randomly presented. Sound stimuli ranged from 2 (15–100 Hz) to 5
complete cycles. Stimuli, presented in 4-dB steps from 92 to 136 dB re 1 mPa, were fed to a home-
made underwater speaker device and amplifier (P. J. Fonseca) using the laptop and an A/D converter
(Edirol UA 25). Before each experiment, the sound stimuli were calibrated with a hydrophone
(Brüel and Kjaer 8103) connected to a sound level meter (Brüel and Kjaer Mediator 2238) placed
in the same position as the fish. AEPs were averaged to minimize stimulus artifacts using home-
made software (P. J. Fonseca).
3 Preliminary Results
Some of the AEP waveforms obtained indicated a clear double-frequency effect, which was
further reassurance of a biological response. The audiogram showed that P. pictus sensitivity is
higher at low frequencies between 15 and 400 Hz, with the lowest hearing threshold of 105 dB re
1 mPa at 15 Hz (Fig. 1 ). This best hearing range matches the main sound energy of both courtship
(thump and drum) and agonistic (drum) calls, i.e., between ~83 and 297 Hz (Amorim and Neves
2007, 2008 ) .
Fig. 1 Hearing thresholds of Pomatoschistus pictus showing the range of the main sound energy of agonistic and
courtship calls. Values are averages ± SD
111
Hearing Sensitivity of the Painted Goby, Pomatoschistus pictus
4 Discussion
The hearing sensitivity of P. pictus seems adapted to detect conspecific sounds, indicating that
acoustic communication provides essential information during species-specific interactions. In
addition, we suggest that the enhanced low-frequency sensitivity (below 60 Hz) could be the result
of an evolutionary adaptation that, for a benthonic species, maximizes the ability to detect prey,
predators, and mates.
Noise pollution is a threat to marine gobies (Codarin et al. 2009 ) . Noise energy of man-made
activity is mainly concentrated below 1 kHz (Nakahara 1999 ) . Because P. pictus acoustic commu-
nication occurs within this frequency range, the concern is that anthropogenic noise might be
strongly masking their hearing and hence their ability to communicate and to react to relevant
acoustic stimuli. Future work is needed to test the masking effect of noise pollution on hearing in
P. pictus .
References
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tion in three fish species living in a protected area (Miramare, Italy). Mar Pollut Bull 58:1880–1087.
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(Perciformes, Gobiidae): Comparative analysis an evolutionary outlook. Biol J Linn Soc 93:763–778.
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... Lowest thresholds occurred at 100-200 Hz at 65-80 dB re 1 μm/s 2 , which is comparable in both sensitivity and bandwidth to the AEP audiograms collected for another percid, Perca fl uviatilis (Amoser and Ladich 2005 ). In gobies, pressure audiograms have been collected from Padogobius bonelli and Padogobius nigricans , Neogobius melanostomus (Belanger et al. 2010 ;Zeyl et al. 2013 ), and Pomatoschistus pictus (Bolgan et al. 2012 ; Fig. 3c, d ). The particle motion audiograms available for Gobius cruentatus (Wysocki et al. 2009 ) and N. melanostomus found best sensitivities at 100-200 Hz at ~70 dB re 1 μm/s 2 . ...
... A goldfi sh ( Carassius auratus ) audiogram collected under the same experimental setup is shown for comparison ( n = 5). Goby audiogram sources include: Pomatoschitus pictus (Bolgan et al. 2012 ), Padogobius bonelli (formerly P. martensii ) and Padogobius nigricans , Gobius cruentatus (Wysocki et al. 2009 ), and Neogobius melanostomus (males and females averaged, Zeyl et al. 2013 ). Sculpin audiogram sources include: Cottus rhenanus and Cottus perifretum (Colleye et al. 2013 ), Cottus ricei (Mann et al. 2007 frequency of E. crossopterum , which resides in relatively quiet pools, but only about a 10 dB difference for E. fl abellare , which inhabits noisier riffl es. ...
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... Although few systematic comparisons of acoustic signals are available for closely-related fish species [21], temporal characteristics of sounds are thought to be important carriers of species-specific information in fish. In fact distinct temporal patterns, such as pulse number and rate, often differentiate sounds of closely-related sympatric species such as in the Pomacentridae, Cichlidae and Mormyridae [18,20,41,45] . Further, playback experiments testing male pomacentrids from the genus Stegastes provided evidence that fish can distinguish conspecific courtship sounds from those of closelyrelated congenerics, based on the number of pulses and pulse rate [17,45]. ...
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... Sound stimuli consisted of three reef and three offshore recordings, each cut to 3 min of duration. A low-pass filter of 3 kHz was applied to the recordings so that the frequency of sound stimuli was below the resonance frequency of the experimental tank [56] while matching the auditory ability of the species [57]. ...
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