Statistics of natural communication signals observed in the wild identify important yet neglected stimulus regimes in weakly electric fish

• Published in: The Journal of neuroscience Vol. 38; no. 24; pp. 5456 - 5465
• Main Authors: Henninger, Jörg, Krahe, Rüdiger, Kirschbaum, Frank, Grewe, Jan, Benda, Jan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Society for Neuroscience 13.06.2018
• Subjects: Biological evolution; Courtship; Ecological niches; Firing rate; Niches; Rainforests; Sensory neurons; Sensory systems; Spawning; Statistics; Stimuli; Synchronism
• ISSN: 0270-6474; 1529-2401
• DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0350-18.2018

Sensory systems evolve in the ecological niches each species is occupying. Accordingly, encoding of natural stimuli by sensory neurons is expected to be adapted to the statistics of these stimuli. For a direct quantification of sensory scenes we tracked natural communication behavior of male and female weakly electric fish, , in their Neotropical rainforest habitat with high spatio-temporal resolution over several days. In the context of courtship we observed large quantities of electrocommunication signals. Echo responses, acknowledgment signals, and their synchronizing role in spawning demonstrated the behavioral relevance of these signals. In both courtship and aggressive contexts, we observed robust behavioral responses in stimulus regimes that have so far been neglected in electrophysiological studies of this well characterized sensory system and that are well beyond the range of known best frequency and amplitude tuning of the electroreceptor afferents' firing rate modulation. Our results emphasize the importance of quantifying sensory scenes derived from freely behaving animals in their natural habitats for understanding the function and evolution of neural systems. The processing mechanisms of sensory systems have evolved in the context of the natural lives of organisms. To understand the functioning of sensory systems therefore requires probing them in the stimulus regimes they evolved in. We took advantage of the continuously generated electric fields of weakly electric fish to explore electrosensory stimulus statistics in their natural Neotropical habitat. Unexpectedly, many of the electrocommunication signals recorded during courtship, spawning, and aggression had much smaller amplitudes or higher frequencies than stimuli used so far in neurophysiological characterizations of the electrosensory system. Our results demonstrate that quantifying sensory scenes derived from freely behaving animals in their natural habitats is essential to avoid biases in the choice of stimuli used to probe brain function.