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First published online June 15, 2007
Journal of Experimental Biology 210, 2244-2252 (2007)
Published by The Company of Biologists 2007
doi: 10.1242/jeb.003509

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Electrical and behavioral courtship displays in the mormyrid fish Brienomyrus brachyistius

Ryan Y. Wong^* and Carl D. Hopkins

Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA

View larger version (26K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Fig. 1. Separation of a mixed electric organ discharge (EOD) recording into pulses from males and females using cross correlation analysis. (A) The original mixed recording voltage (V) versus time (s). Exemplar male and female EOD templates are expanded on the right. (B) (V*m)2 as function of time. Where V is the original voltage trace, m is the male exemplar EOD and the operator * is the cross correlation. All squared coefficients are positive. (C) The same for the female template. To the right in A and B (V*m)2 is compared with (V*f)2 for a male EOD showing how the cross correlation is higher for the male (green) than female (red) model; C shows the same for a female EOD. EODs are subsequently identified for every pulse in the 2-s recording. (D,E) Inter-pulse intervals versus time for male and female, respectively.

View larger version (22K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Fig. 2. Quantifying simultaneous stereotyped sequence of pulse intervals (SPIs) and motor patterns. (A) For each of the 30-min observation periods in the non-breeding conditions, three random consecutive minutes were analyzed. Note that depending on length of courtship bout(s), we analyzed varying lengths of time for each observation session. (B) In the 3-min segment, stereotyped motor and SPI patterns were identified and tallied for each sex. Each vertical bar indicates the starting time of the motor and SPI displays in each sex. Select displays are labeled: H, hovering; S, swimming; L, long cessations; R, regularization; B, slow burst. (C) A 30-s segment of a time (s) versus interval (ms) plot expanded in detail in (D) with SPI and motor patterns identified and bracketed for quantifying purposes. M, medium burst; D, random; C, short cessations.

View larger version (20K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Fig. 3. Examples of (A) creaks, (B) rasps, (C) medium bursts, (D) fast bursts, (E) slow bursts and (F) regularizations from all pairs. The letter and number combination on the sequence of pulse intervals (SPI) plots indicate the sex (M or F) and pair that produced the SPI.

View larger version (20K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Fig. 4. Examples of (A) gradual increases, (B) scallops, (C) short cessations, (D) long cessations and (E) random from all pairs. The letter and number combination on the sequence of pulse intervals (SPI) plots indicate the sex (M or F) and pair that produced the SPI. `Not seen' indicates SPI that was not emitted for that pair.

View larger version (18K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Fig. 5. Examples of rasp matching from all pairs. Those from males are in green and those from females are in red. Note the tendency for alternating pattern of rasps by the male and bursts by the female.