Neogobius Melanostomus) Acoustic Signalling
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University of Windsor Scholarship at UWindsor Electronic Theses and Dissertations Theses, Dissertations, and Major Papers 11-7-2015 The roles of individual variation and female choice in round goby (Neogobius melanostomus) acoustic signalling Meghan Donovan University of Windsor Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/etd Recommended Citation Donovan, Meghan, "The roles of individual variation and female choice in round goby (Neogobius melanostomus) acoustic signalling" (2015). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 5512. https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/etd/5512 This online database contains the full-text of PhD dissertations and Masters’ theses of University of Windsor students from 1954 forward. These documents are made available for personal study and research purposes only, in accordance with the Canadian Copyright Act and the Creative Commons license—CC BY-NC-ND (Attribution, Non-Commercial, No Derivative Works). 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The roles of individual variation and female choice in round goby (Neogobius melanostomus) acoustic signalling by Meghan Donovan A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies through Biological Sciences in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science at the University of Windsor Windsor, Ontario, Canada © 2015 Meghan Donovan The roles of individual variation and female choice in round goby (Neogobius melanostomus) acoustic signalling by Meghan Donovan APPROVED BY: ______________________________________________ A. Fisk Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences ______________________________________________ J. Ciborowski Department of Biological Sciences ______________________________________________ D. Higgs, Advisor Department of Biological Sciences August 17, 2015 DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY I hereby certify that I am the sole author of this thesis and that no part of this thesis has been published or submitted for publication. I certify that, to the best of my knowledge, my thesis does not infringe upon anyone‘s copyright nor violate any proprietary rights and that any ideas, techniques, quotations, or any other material from the work of other people included in my thesis, published or otherwise, are fully acknowledged in accordance with the standard referencing practices. Furthermore, to the extent that I have included copyrighted material that surpasses the bounds of fair dealing within the meaning of the Canada Copyright Act, I certify that I have obtained a written permission from the copyright owner(s) to include such material(s) in my thesis and have included copies of such copyright clearances to my appendix. I declare that this is a true copy of my thesis, including any final revisions, as approved by my thesis committee and the Graduate Studies office, and that this thesis has not been submitted for a higher degree to any other University or Institution. iii ABSTRACT Acoustic signalling in teleost fishes serves a variety of communicatory purposes, mostly centered around aggression and courtship. There is strong evidence that courtship calls are used by many fishes to locate mates, coordinate spawning, and for species recognition, but the possibility that these calls also act as honest signals is not yet highly explored. Calls produced by the male round goby, Neogobius melanostomus, were analyzed for dominant frequency, interpulse interval, duration and number of pulses in the call. Call characteristics were then analyzed for relationships to body morphometrics of total length, head width, total weight, and gonadosomatic index. Strong interactive relationships between male body traits and individual call characteristics were found. Females were shown to have a preference for longer interpulse interval, suggesting that calls are capable of honestly signalling male body size. These findings suggest that acoustic honest signalling as well as individual discrimination exists in this species. iv DEDICATION I dedicate this thesis to my family and friends for all of their love, support and understanding. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Firstly, I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Dennis Higgs, for all of his help and guidance throughout this project. You really went above and beyond as a supervisor and I am incredibly happy that I joined your lab. I have to thank you and Kirsten both for making these two years really enjoyable, I will always remember our lab‘s humourous lunchtime conversations. I am very grateful to Dr. Jan Ciborowski and Dr. Aaron Fisk for serving on my committee and for all of their suggestions throughout my project. I would also like to thank Dr. Oliver Love for serving as the chair on my defence. I would also like to thank Dr. Christina Semeniuk for your help in interpreting interaction effects. Thank you to Drs. Clara Amorim, Stefano Malavasi and Gianluca Polgar for allowing me to use your oscillograms in this thesis. I also want to thank Dr. Mattias Johansson for your suggestions on the statistics of Chapter 3. A huge thank you to everyone who came out to help me collect gobies in the field, especially Christian Carnevale, Bronson Goodfellow, Stephanie Cervi, Peter Cunha and Daniel Dubovan. Sarah Humphrey and Megan Mickle, thank both of you immensely for spending day after day fishing in the heat with me. It would not have been anywhere near as much fun without you ladies. Thank you to Shyane Wiegers for her help with video analysis. Thank you Mallory Wiper for all the advice and fantastic times I had in the lab with you. Thank you to all of the undergraduate students in the Higgs lab for making these past two years great. vi To all the friends I have made during my time in Windsor, thank you all so, so much, you have all made my time here amazing and I am incredibly happy to have gotten to know you all. I would like to thank all of the staff as well, especially Linda Sterling and Melissa Gabrieau down in animal care, Bob Hodge for all his technical support, the staff at the Technical Support Centre for all their help, Rodica Leu and Ingrid Churchill, and Nancy Barkley. This research was funded by grants from NSERC awarded to Dennis Higgs and by funding from OFAH. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS AUTHOR‘S DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY ....................................................... iii ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... iv DEDICATION .................................................................................................................. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................. vi LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................ x LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... xi CHAPTER I. REVIEW ON SEXUALLY SELECTIVE BIOACOUSTICS IN THE GOBIIDAE Thesis Objectives ........................................................................... 1 Sensory Systems in an Aquatic Environment ............................... 1 Underwater Sound Propagation .................................................... 2 Uses of Sound in Fish ................................................................... 3 Sound Production in Fish .............................................................. 5 Sound Production in the Gobiidae ................................................ 8 Phylogenetic Links Between Sound ............................................. 8 Call structure ............................................................................... 10 Seasonality and Nesting .............................................................. 11 Sound Producing Mechanisms .................................................... 13 Bioacoustics as Sexually Selected Signals.................................. 15 Recommendations and Conclusions ........................................... 15 References ................................................................................... 17 II. VARIATION IN THE CALL STRUCTURE OF MALE ROUND GOBIES (NEOGOBIUS MELANOSTOMUS) IN RELATION TO BODY MORPHOMETRICS Introduction ................................................................................. 21 Model Organism ......................................................................... 23 Sampling Methods ...................................................................... 23 Experimental Procedure .............................................................. 24 Call Analysis ............................................................................... 25 Statistical Analysis ...................................................................... 25 Results ......................................................................................... 27 Discussion ................................................................................... 31 References ................................................................................... 38 III. EXAMINING THE POTENTIAL FOR ACOUSTIC HONEST