Stimulus frequency differentially affects chirping in two species of weakly electric fish: implications for the evolution of signal structure and function.

During social interactions, apteronotid electric fish modulate their electric organ discharges (EODs) to produce transient communication signals known as chirps. Chirps vary widely across species and sex in both number and structure. In Apteronotus leptorhynchus, males chirp far more than females and their chirps have greater frequency modulation than those of females. High-frequency chirps are produced by males most often in response to female-like electric signals. As such, they have been hypothesized to function in courtship. The more common low-frequency chirps, produced by both males and females in response to same-sex signals, are hypothesized to function as aggressive signals. To determine whether the two chirp types in the closely related Apteronotus albifrons have similar functions, we stimulated chirping in male and female A. leptorhynchus and A. albifrons with playbacks simulating the EODs of same-sex versus opposite-sex conspecifics. As in A. leptorhynchus, male and female A. albifrons produced low-frequency chirps most often to same-sex signals. Unlike A. leptorhynchus, however, A. albifrons also produced more high-frequency chirps to same-sex stimuli than to opposite-sex stimuli. This suggests that high-frequency chirps in A. albifrons, unlike those in A. leptorhynchus, may not function as courtship signals and that the function of similar chirp types has diversified in Apteronotus. Examples such as this, in which the function of a communication signal has changed in closely related species, are rare. The electrocommunication signals of apteronotids may thus provide a remarkable opportunity to investigate the evolutionary interactions of signal structure and function.

Sex and species differences in neuromodulatory input to a premotor nucleus: a comparative study of substance P and communication behavior in weakly electric fish.

Many electric fish species modulate their electric organ discharges (EODs) to produce transient social signals that vary in number and structure. In Apteronotus leptorhynchus, males modulate their EOD more often than females, whereas in Apteronotus albifrons, males and females produce similar numbers of modulations. Sex differences in the number of EOD modulations in A. leptorhynchus are associated with sex differences in substance P in the diencephalic nucleus that controls transient EOD modulations, the CP/PPn. These sex differences in substance P have been hypothesized to regulate sex differences in the production of EOD modulations. To comparatively test this hypothesis, we examined substance P immunoreactivity in the CP/PPn of male and female A. leptorhynchus and A. albifrons. Because the number of EOD modulations is sexually monomorphic in A. albifrons, we predicted no sex difference in substance P in the CP/PPn of this species. Contrary to this prediction, male A. albifrons had significantly more substance P in the CP/PPn than females. This suggests that sex differences in substance P are not sufficient for controlling sex differences in the number of EOD modulations. Modulation structure (frequency excursion and/or duration), however, is also sexually dimorphic in A. leptorhynchus and is another possible behavioral correlate of the sexually dimorphic distribution of substance P. The present study found pronounced sex differences in the structure of EOD modulations in A. albifrons similar to those in A. leptorhynchus. Thus, sex differences in substance P may influence sex differences in the structure, rather than the number, of EOD modulations.