Acoustic Communication in Noise

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Publisher Summary

Environmental noise can affect acoustic communication through limiting the broadcast area, or active space, of a signal by decreasing signal-to-noise ratios at the position of the receiver. At the same time, noise is ubiquitous in all habitats and is, therefore, likely to disturb animals, as well as humans, under many circumstances. However, both animals and humans have evolved diverse solutions to the background noise problem, and this chapter reviews recent advancements in studies of vocal adaptations to interference by background noise and relate these to fundamental issues in sound perception. The chapter starts with the discussion of sender's side by considering potential evolutionary shaping of species-specific signal characteristics and individual short‐term adjustments of signal features. Subsequently, it focuses on the receivers of signals and reviews their sensory capacities for signal detection, recognition, and discrimination and relates these issues to auditory scene analysis and the ecological concept of signal space. The data from studies on insects, anurans, birds, and mammals, including humans, and to a lesser extent available work on fish and reptiles is also discussed in the chapter.

Section snippets

The Problem of Background Noise

Communication is the foundation upon which all social relationships between animals are built. However, the use of signals within most sensory modalities is crucially constrained by background noise, for decreased signal‐to‐noise‐ratios at the position of the receiver limit the active space of a signal (Klump, 1996). Nevertheless, the problem of noise has often been neglected in studies on animal communication. In a general sense, noise is any factor that reduces the ability of a receiver to

The Sender's Side—Signal Production

Studies on transmission of long‐range signals have emphasized that acoustic communication is constrained considerably by habitat properties such as microclimate and vegetation structure (Morton 1975, Wiley 1982). While traveling through the environment, acoustic signals are subjected to degradation, and signal propagation is especially limited by frequency‐dependent attenuation. Within this conceptual framework, the evolution of acoustic long‐range signals has been discussed with regard to

The Receiver's Side—Signal Perception

Many animals rely on acoustic signals in a rather noisy world. This must mean that they can deal with the environmental conditions to such an extent that an important role for auditory stimuli in fitness‐related tasks is still a likely evolutionary outcome of natural selection. This may suggest even greater constraints in other signaling modalities, but it is also due to the receivers’ abilities to extract relevant signals from irrelevant noise. Although the receiving end of the auditory

Conclusions

Successful acoustic communication in noise may make the difference between attracting a mate or not, between safeguarding a territory or not, or between detecting predators and prey or not. This close relationship with matters of life and death and sexual selection means that variation in signal efficiency has major fitness consequences. Strong selection related to noise may therefore shape acoustic signal design over evolutionary time to make it stand out best under the noise conditions of the

Summary

Environmental noise can affect acoustic communication through limiting the broadcast area, or active space, of a signal by decreasing signal‐to‐noise ratios at the position of the receiver. At the same time, noise is ubiquitous in all habitats and is therefore likely to disturb animals as well as humans under many circumstances. However, both animals and humans have evolved diverse solutions to the background noise problem, and here we review recent advances in studies of vocal adaptations to

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Carel ten Cate, Gabriel Beckers, and Vincent Janik for their helpful comments on the manuscript. In addition, this chapter benefited from valuable suggestions by Marc Naguib, Charles Snowdon, and Peter Slater. H.B. acknowledges funding by the Emmy Noether Programme of the German Research Foundation (award BR 2309/2–1) and the support of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, where a fellowship in the academic year 2004–2005 provided excellent working conditions. H.S. was

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