“As a grad student, the concept of getting into a field where there was so much to discover, even at a standard discovery level, was interesting to me,” he informs The Scientist.See “Fish Use a Variety of Sounds to Communicate” Although there arent many, reports of fish sounds go back a long method. While fish appear to utilize noise for the very same functions that other vertebrates do– usually to attract mates or chase away rivals– it was uncertain how common the phenomenon is.NOT SO SILENT: Croakers (family Sciaenidae) vocalize by vibrating muscles versus their swim bladders.To find out, Rice just recently set out to do a massive study of published research on sound production in ray-finned fishes, or actinopterygians, which represent more than half of all vertebrate types. Combining this with analyses of fish morphology allowed the researchers to forecast new candidates for sound production, based on morphological characteristics in fish households and evolutionary relationships with known sound-producing fishes, while bioinformatics approaches probed when and how often the phenomenon had evolved in the clade.Their analysis, published previously this year, suggests that two-thirds of all actinopterygian types belong to households that include at least one sound-producing fish, and that vocalization has actually independently evolved 33 times across the clade.
Fish like the Atlantic croaker (Micropogonias undulatus), part of the drum household of fishes (Sciaenidae), make sound by vibrating specialized muscles against their swim bladders. “As a graduate student, the idea of getting into a field where there was so much to discover, even at a basic discovery level, was amazing to me,” he tells The Scientist.See “Fish Use a Variety of Sounds to Communicate” Although there arent many, reports of fish sounds go back a long way. From 1950 to 1970, marine biologist Marie Fish and engineer William Mowbray used hydrophones to listen to 220 types of fish, ultimately compiling sound recordings from 153 of them, including the haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus), black drum (Pogonias cromis), and bluestriped grunt (Haemulon sciurus), among others.These days, Rice says, hydrophones are low-cost and powerful, making large-scale underwater eavesdropping possible. While fish appear to utilize sound for the exact same functions that other vertebrates do– generally to bring in mates or chase away rivals– it was unclear how typical the phenomenon is.NOT SO SILENT: Croakers (household Sciaenidae) vocalize by vibrating muscles versus their swim bladders.To discover out, Rice just recently set out to do a massive study of released research on sound production in ray-finned fishes, or actinopterygians, which represent more than half of all vertebrate species. Integrating this with analyses of fish morphology permitted the scientists to predict new prospects for sound production, based on morphological characteristics in fish households and evolutionary relationships with known sound-producing fishes, while bioinformatics approaches penetrated when and how frequently the phenomenon had evolved in the clade.Their analysis, released earlier this year, suggests that two-thirds of all actinopterygian species belong to families that include at least one sound-producing fish, and that vocalization has actually separately progressed 33 times across the clade.
