Electric pulse characteristics can enable species recognition in African weakly electric fish species.

ABSTRACT: Communication is key to a wide variety of animal behaviours and multiple modalities are often involved in this exchange of information from sender to receiver. The communication of African weakly electric fish, however, is thought to be predominantly unimodal and is mediated by their electric sense, in which species-specific electric organ discharges (EODs) are generated in a context-dependent and thus variable sequence of pulse intervals (SPI). While the primary function of the electric sense is considered to be electrolocation, both of its components likely carry information regarding identity of the sender. However, a clear understanding of their contribution to species recognition is incomplete. We therefore analysed these two electrocommunication components (EOD waveform and SPI stati

SUBMITTER: Nagel R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6050243 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature