Le troglodyte est un oiseau chanteur forestier qui défend son territoire par des chants discrets. Les mâles voisins ayant des territoires adjacents forment des réseaux de communication acoustique. La mise en place, la dynamique et l’évolution dans le temps de ces réseaux en conditions naturelles sont peu connus.Par des enregistrements ciblés et continus, un suivi sur plusieurs années, des analyses acoustiques et des expériences de propagation et de diffusions passives et interactives, nous avons montré que i) les chants suivent des règles de construction syntaxique complexes et présentent des microdialectes, ii) les mâles voisins ont de nombreux chants en commun, discriminent les chant du groupe vs des chants inconnus, iii) les mâles portent une signature acoustique individuelle complexe et utilisent différentes stratégies d’interaction acoustique entre eux, iv) les groupes de voisins sont des communautés pérennes perpétuant des traditions vocales. / The Winter wren is a forest songbird singing discrete songs for territorial defense and mate attraction. Neighbouring males defending adjacent territories form acoustic communication networks. Little is known about such networks concerning their onset, dynamics and evolution in time, under natural conditions.By means of focal and continuous recordings, a survey over several years, acoustic analyses as well as propagation and playback experiments, we showed that: i) songs follow complex syntactical rules and form microdialects, ii) neighbouring males share many songs and discriminate between songs from neighbours and strangers, iii) males have complex individual acoustic signatures and use differential singing strategies in interaction with each other, iv) groups of neighbours are perennial communities maintaining vocal traditions.

A Caatinga é um ecossistema brasileiro análogo as savanas africanas apresentando escassez de chuvas e temperaturas altas. O mocó apresenta, importantes adaptações ao microambiente dos afloramentos rochosos. Esse roedor caviomorfo, abandonou o hábito pastador comum a outros roedores cavíneos, como preá e a capivara, pela capacidade de escalar árvores e se alimentar de folhas e frutos. Alongou o período de gestação e adotou o cuidado paterno. Interessados em entender de que forma a comunicação acústica teria se ajustado ao ambiente isolado dos rochedos da caatinga, gravamos e analisamos as emissões sonoras dos mocós. Foram 90 dias de trabalho de campo nas Fazendas Tamanduá e São Francisco, na cidade de Patos, Paraíba. Capturamos 13 animais (6 machos e 7 fêmeas) e fizemos registros em áudio e vídeo em três situações: 1) pareamentos em caixa teste, nas condições macho x macho, macho x fêmea e fêmea x fêmea, 2) animais em grupo em cativeiro, e 3) animais em vida livre. Encontramos um repertório de 11 sinais sonoros, registrados em 3 categorias amplas de comportamento: (1) Exploração/Forrageamento: Có de contato, Estalido, Chorinho e Drrr; (2) Alerta: Assobio de alarme, Drrr e Silvo; (3) Interação Agonística: Ganido, Grito, Ronco, Arfar, Assobio de alarme e o Baterdedentes. O repertório mostrouse mais rico do que o de outros caviomorfos, como o preá. Discutimos esse resultado em relação ao tipo de vida social da espécie em comparação com a de outros caviníneos e à vida nos rochedos da caatinga. Também sugerimos que o Assobio de alarme seja um comportamento compartilhado entre o mocó e outras espécies de roedores 10 de rochedos. Há uma perspectiva de continuidade da pesquisa em busca de uma maior compreensão da função biológica desse sinal e da riqueza desse repertório acústico / The environment of Brazilian Caatinga ecosystem is similar to African Savannah with low level of rain and high temperature. The Moco shows important adaptation at the microenvironment of rock outcrops. This caviomorph rodent abandoned grazing habit, commom at others Caviinae species such as the Cavy and the Capybara for the capacity of climbing trees feeding of leaves and fruits. It also lengthened the gestation period and adopted paternal care. Interested in understanding how acoustic communication would have adjusted to the isolated environment of Caatinga rock piles, we recorded and analyzed the signals songs of Moco. Past through 90 days in field at Fazenda Tamanduá and Sítio São Francisco located at Patos city Paraiba State in Brazil. We captured 13 animals (6 males and 7 females), acquired audio and video of animals in three different situations: 1) paired in tests boxes under conditions: male x male, female x male and female x female; 2) captivity group and 3) Living free. We found a repertoire with 11 acoustic signals registered in 3 broad behavioral categories: (1) Exploration/ Foraging: Contact call, Co, Clicking (Estalido), Whine (Chorinho) and Drrr call, (2) Warning: Alarm whistle, Drrr call and Silvo, (3) Agonistic Interaction: yelp (Ganido), scream (Grito), grunt (Ronco), a breathless like sound (Arfar), Alarm Whistle and ToothChatter. This repertoire showed more rich that other caviomorph as a cavy. eu escreveria esse parágrafo dessa forma: This repertoire seemed better than other caviomorph as a Cavy. We discussed those results comparing the social life of species with social life of others Caviinae and the life at the rock piles of Caatinga. We also suggested that the Alarm whistle is shared between the 12 Moco and others rock rodents. There is a perspective to continue this research looking for a better comprehension of the biologic function of this signal and acoustic repertoire richness

This project started early in the summer of 2016 when it became evident there was a need for an effective and efficient signal analysis toolkit for the Littoral Acoustic Demonstration Center Gulf Ecological Monitoring and Modeling (LADC-GEMM) Research Consortium. LADC-GEMM collected underwater acoustic data in the northern Gulf of Mexico during the summer of 2015 using Environmental Acoustic Recording Systems (EARS) buoys. Much of the visualization of data was handled through short scripts and executed through terminal commands, each time requiring the data to be loaded into memory and parameters to be fed through arguments. The vision was to develop a graphical user interface (GUI) that would increase the productivity of manual signal analysis. It has been expanded to make several calculations autonomously for cataloging and meta data storage of whale clicks. Over the last year and a half, a working prototype has been developed with MathWorks matrix laboratory (MATLAB), an integrated development environment (IDE). The prototype is now very modular and can accept new tools relatively quickly when development is completed. The program has been named Banshee, as the mythical creatures are known to “wail”. This paper outlines the functionality of the GUI, explains the benefits of frequency analysis, the physical models that facilitate these analytics, and the mathematics performed to achieve these models.

Darwinian sexual selection predicts that males with the most extravagant secondary sexual traits suffer elevated mortality. Although correlative evidence has generally not borne this idea out, recent research, including a field cricket study, showed that investment in sexually selected traits is costly to survival. I investigated male survival, ornamentation (song) and mating success in a North American grylline, Gryllus pennsylvanicus, to test the generality of previous work and highlight the importance of ecology differences to resource allocation. As the calling songs of older male G. pennsylvanicus are highly attractive to females, in Chapter 2 I tested whether male age correlated with calling song and found a weak but statistically significant correlation, thus leaving open the possibility that choosy females use an age-based indicator mechanism. In Chapter 3, I tested the condition dependence of male survival and calling effort. In contrast to previous work, I found that high condition males both called more and lived longer than low condition males, although there was no trade-off between survival and calling effort. The substantial condition dependence of calling effort suggests that calling effort is under strong directional selection. In Chapter 4 I tested whether female mating preferences resulted in strong selection on male calling effort. I also tested for the condition dependence of female mating preferences. I found that female choosiness was condition-dependent, but the rank of preferred male songs (preference function) was not. Both low and high condition females preferred high calling effort over low calling effort song. In Chapter 5 I tested for evidence of nonlinear selection on male survival that might explain the nonlinear pattern of male investment in survival seen in Chapter 3 (i.e. male survival leveled-off with increasing condition). I found that socially experienced females, but not virgin and naive females, exerted linear selection on male age. I discuss these and the other results of my thesis in the context of previous work on field crickets and condition-dependent ornamentation. Finally, Appendix A reports results that confirm ancient Chinese cultural knowledge that large headed male crickets are more successful in male-male combat.

Darwinian sexual selection predicts that males with the most extravagant secondary sexual traits suffer elevated mortality. Although correlative evidence has generally not borne this idea out, recent research, including a field cricket study, showed that investment in sexually selected traits is costly to survival. I investigated male survival, ornamentation (song) and mating success in a North American grylline, Gryllus pennsylvanicus, to test the generality of previous work and highlight the importance of ecology differences to resource allocation. As the calling songs of older male G. pennsylvanicus are highly attractive to females, in Chapter 2 I tested whether male age correlated with calling song and found a weak but statistically significant correlation, thus leaving open the possibility that choosy females use an age-based indicator mechanism. In Chapter 3, I tested the condition dependence of male survival and calling effort. In contrast to previous work, I found that high condition males both called more and lived longer than low condition males, although there was no trade-off between survival and calling effort. The substantial condition dependence of calling effort suggests that calling effort is under strong directional selection. In Chapter 4 I tested whether female mating preferences resulted in strong selection on male calling effort. I also tested for the condition dependence of female mating preferences. I found that female choosiness was condition-dependent, but the rank of preferred male songs (preference function) was not. Both low and high condition females preferred high calling effort over low calling effort song. In Chapter 5 I tested for evidence of nonlinear selection on male survival that might explain the nonlinear pattern of male investment in survival seen in Chapter 3 (i.e. male survival leveled-off with increasing condition). I found that socially experienced females, but not virgin and naive females, exerted linear selection on male age. I discuss these and the other results of my thesis in the context of previous work on field crickets and condition-dependent ornamentation. Finally, Appendix A reports results that confirm ancient Chinese cultural knowledge that large headed male crickets are more successful in male-male combat.

Many families of catfish produce sounds via pectoral spine stridulation and/or swim bladder compression using sonic muscles attached to the swim bladder. The sound production capabilities and characteristics in Loricariidae, the largest catfish family, have not been well examined. Sounds produced by two loricariid catfish species, Macrotocinclus affinis and Pterygoplichthys gibbiceps were recorded. Both species produce broad band calls via pectoral spine stridulation. These species produce sounds by rubbing the ridges of the dorsal process of the pectoral spine base against the groove of the pectoral girdle. Call duration was generally shorter in M. affinis (2-15 ms) as opposed to those produced by P. gibbiceps (20-200 ms). Mean dominant frequencies were approximately 4000 Hz for M. affinis and 1000 (abduction) and 4500 Hz (adduction) for P. gibbiceps. Light and scanning electron microscopy were used to examine the dorsal process of the pectoral spines from the largest and smallest M. affinis, and from a wide range of sizes from P. gibbiceps. Mean distances between dorsal process ridges of M. affinis and P. gibbicepswere approximately 50 and 160 microns, respectively. For P. gibbiceps, dominant frequency was an inverse function of total length and inter-ridge distance.

Methods for collecting behavioral audiograms are often time consuming and require trained, captive subjects. It is more practical to measure hearing sensitivity using electrophysiological methods, such as auditory evoked potential (AEP) testing, in which electrodes measure action potentials in response to acoustic stimuli. These data can be collected in a matter of hours. However, results should be verified through behavioral testing. Current knowledge of marine turtle auditory abilities is based on a few electrophysiological tests. The purpose of this study was to collect and compare behavioral and auditory evoked potential audiograms in a captive adult loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta). The behavioral audiogram was collected using a go/no-go modified staircase method utilizing 2-second pure-tone stimuli. AEP thresholds were measured underwater using subdermal electrodes placed beneath the frontoparietal scale, dorsal to the midbrain. Action potentials were measured in response to 50 ms tonal stimuli and averaged over a maximum of 1,000 responses. Evoked potential testing yielded thresholds from 100 - 1131 Hz with peak sensitivity at 200 and 400 Hz (110 dB re 1 µPa). Behavioral testing yielded thresholds from 50 - 800 Hz with peak sensitivity at 100 Hz (98 dB re 1 µPa). Behavioral thresholds averaged 8 dB lower than AEP thresholds from 100 to 400 Hz and 5 dB higher at 800 Hz. Results indicate that behavioral and evoked potential techniques are suitable for determining marine turtle hearing sensitivity. AEP testing is a good alternative when dealing with wild or untrained animals and when time is a critical factor.

No description available.

De nombreux espèces utilisent des signaux multicomposants/multimodales. Au cours de cette thèse, nous avons étudié les signaux acoustiques et visuels produits dans le cadre du choix du partenaire chez le Manchot royal. Concernant les composantes acoustiques, nous avons identifié des arrangements syllabiques spécifiques à chacun des sexes. La fréquence fondamentale et l'énergie des cris des manchots royaux, ainsi que certaines caractéristiques colorimétriques signalent des informations sur la classe d'âge de l'émetteur. Nous avons montré que l'appareil vocal des manchots royaux permet les individus de produire deux bandes de fréquences harmoniques puisqu'ils présentent un syrinx trachéo-bronchique et donc deux sources sonores. En résumé, ce travail de thèse a contribué à une meilleure compréhension des signaux utilisés dans le cadre du choix du partenaire chez une espèce monomorphique qui présente un comportement reproducteur très coûteux. / Communication signals used in sexual selection can be costly to produce and even reduce the emitter’s fitness. Many species use multicomponent signals communication systems in different signal modalities. Here, we study visual and acoustic signals produced in the context of mate choice on a sexually monomorphically ornamented seabird, the king penguin. We identified a sex-specific syllable pattern in the vocalisations of 1-year-old fledglings, juveniles and adult birds. We found that fundamental frequency and energy components of calls and beak spot and ear patch ornament parameters signal information about the age-class of the emitter. Investigating the vocal apparatus of adult king penguins, we showed that king penguins can produce “two voices” since they have a tracheobronchial syrinx, i.e. two sound sources. This thesis contributed to our understanding of signals used in mate choice in a sexually monomorphically ornamented species that exhibits a very costly breeding behaviour.

Les activités humaines font peser sur l’écosystème marin de multiples pressions délétères. Pollution chimique, changement climatique, risque d’acidification, débris de plastique et déchets radioactifs ont des impacts sans précèdent. Une pollution de plus en plus reconnu comme majeur est la pollution sonore. La prospection sismique, le battage de pieux et le trafic maritime génèrent des niveaux sonores qui peuvent être extrêmement forts, modifiant fondamentalement le paysage acoustique sous-marin. On sait que de nombreux mammifères marins et poissons entendent le bruit généré par ces activités et que cela altère leur physiologie et leur éthologie. Par contre, chez les invertébrés marins très peu d’études avaient évalué leur capacité à entendre et l’impact de cette pollution sur eux reste à déterminer. Nous avons abordé le problème par une étude de la capacité de perception du son chez l'huître creuse Magallana gigas en utilisant une approche comportementale et physiologique. Nous avons montré que M. gigas entend dans la gamme de fréquences entre 10 et 1000 Hz. Cette analyse nous a permis de caractériser les sources de sons qui contribuent à leur environnement auditif. Au laboratoire, dans un milieu contaminé (i) au cadmium, un métal que nous avons considéré à la fois comme une substance toxique et un marqueur indirect de l'activité ventilatoire, et (ii), par des bruits de cargo, nous montrons un effet répresseur du bruit caractérisé par une diminution de l'activité valvaire, de l'activité ventilatoire et du taux de croissance. Nous rapportons également une diminution de la bioaccumulation du Cd dans les branchies et une modulation de l'expression de certains gènes. Nous avons enfin étudié sur un enregistrement de 2 ans dans le port commercial de Santander, le comportement (incluant les pontes et la croissance) de 3 groupes d’huitres exposés à une forte pollution sonore et à une « qualité de l’eau » considérée dans la littérature comme bonne à très bonne pour une masse d’eau fortement modifiée. Nous avons retrouvé dans notre analyse différents effets que nous avions provoqués ou prédits à partir du travail de laboratoire où nous avions manipulé le bruit seul. Nous concluons que la pollution sonore au sein du port doit diminuer le fitness des huîtres en modifiant leur activité valvaire, la hiérarchie de leurs rythmes biologiques et la croissance. Nos résultats suggèrent que la pollution sonore peut avoir des conséquences importantes sur les invertébrés et présente un risque fort en termes de productivité de l'écosystème. / Human activities introduce multiple harmful pressures on the marine ecosystem. Chemical pollution, climate change, acidification risk, plastic debris and radioactive wastes have significant effects on marine wildlife. Noise pollution is now recognized as a major source of pollution at sea. Seismic exploration, pile driving and marine traffic, among other activities, generate noise at high sound pressure levels altering the underwater acoustic landscape. Many marine mammals and fish hear the noise generated by these activities which have the potential to alter their physiology and ethology. However, very few studies among marine invertebrates had assessed their ability to hear and the impact of noise pollution on them has yet to be determined. We approached the problem by studying sound perception ability in the pacific oyster Magallana gigas using behavioural and physiological techniques. We have shown that M. gigas is sensitive to sound in the frequency range from 10 to 1000 Hz. This characterization allowed us to define sound sources that contribute to their sound landscape. In the laboratory, in an environment contaminated with (i) cadmium, a metal that we considered to be both a toxic agent and an indirect marker of ventilatory activity, and (ii) cargo ship noise, we showed a depressant or repressant effect of noise characterized by a decrease in valve activity, ventilatory activity and growth rate. We also report a decrease in Cd bioaccumulation and some modulation of gene expression. Finally, we studied a 2-year behavioural record performed in the commercial port of Santander (including spawning events and growth) on 3 groups of oysters exposed to high noise pressure levels. In the port of Santander, the "water quality" is otherwise considered by the literature as good to very good for a heavily modified water body. We found in these records different changes that we previously induced and/or produced in the laboratory. We conclude that the noise pollution load occurring within a commercial port must reduce the fitness of oysters by modifying their valve activity, the hierarchy of their biological rhythms and their growth rate. Our results strongly suggest that noise pollution can have significant consequences on invertebrates and presents a high risk in terms of ecosystem productivity.