Date of Award
11-7-2015
Publication Type
Master Thesis
Degree Name
M.Sc.
Department
Biological Sciences
Keywords
acoustics, behaviour, reproduction, round goby
Supervisor
Higgs, Dennis
Rights
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
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.
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