Browsing by Author "Schrode, Katrina M"

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    Data supporting "Nonlinear processing of a multicomponent communication signal by combination‑sensitive neurons in the anuran inferior colliculus"
    (2017-07-26) Lee, Norman; Schrode, Katrina M; Bee, Mark A; mbee@umn.edu; Bee, Mark A
    This submission is a supplement to the paper entitled "Nonlinear processing of a multicomponent communication signal by combination-sensitive neurons in the anuran inferior colliculus" by Lee et al. (2017) published in the Journal of Comparative Physiology A. We investigated how female green treefrogs (Hyla cinerea) integrate multiple spectral components present in male advertisement calls. Typical calls have a bimodal spectrum consisting of low-frequency (0.9 kHz) and high-frequency (2.7 kHz) components that are transduced by different sensory organs in the inner ear. In behavioral experiments, only bimodal calls reliably elicited phonotaxis in no-choice tests, and they were selectively chosen over unimodal calls in two-alternative choice experiments. Single-unit recordings from the inferior colliculus of awake, passively listening subjects were classified as combination-insensitive (27.9%) or combination-sensitive units (72.1%) based on patterns of relative responses to the same bimodal and unimodal calls. Combination-insensitive units responded similarly to the bimodal call and one or both unimodal calls. In contrast, combination-sensitive units exhibited both linear responses and, more commonly, nonlinear responses to the spectral combination in the bimodal calls. Nonlinearities play potentially critical roles in spectral integration and in the neural processing of multicomponent communication signals. This submission includes source data used in generating the figures presented in the paper.
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    Data supporting "Vocal sacs do not act as visual cues in acoustically guided courtship in Cope’s gray treefrog (Hyla chrysoscelis)"
    (2020-06-22) Li, Hongyu; Schrode, Katrina M; Bee, Mark A; mbee@umn.edu; Bee, Mark A; University of Minnesota Animal Communication Lab
    Components in multiple sensory modalities are present in many animal signals, which provides opportunities for receivers to use them as complementary cues in communication, especially in noisy environments that impose difficulty on signal perception. In frogs, it has been suspected that females use the visual byproduct of call production - the inflation of vocal sacs - as a cue in finding individual calling males in loud choruses. This mate recognition and selection behavior was traditionally considered as acoustically guided but recently there has been rising discussion on whether it was a multimodal process. We investigated whether female Cope’s gray treefrog (Hyla chrysoscelis) use visual cues in the context of sexual communication to find and select males. We performed playback experiments in a field setting under natural light using robotic frog models as visual stimuli and examined females’ responses. Acoustic stimuli were played back in quiet, in noise, and with ambiguous acoustic features. Despite the various acoustic conditions tested in a realistic lighting environment, we did not find any evidence that females use visual cues in the context of sexual communication. We review previous reports on the use of vocal sacs as visual cues in nocturnal anurans and discuss potential reasons for the stark contrast between those reports and this research.