Auditory evoked potential audiograms in post-settlement stage individuals of coral reef fishes

Orphal Colleye (1) , Loic Kéver (1) , David Lecchini (2, 3) , Laëtitia Berten (1, 3) , Eric Parmentier (1)

1 Laboratoire de Morphologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive
2 LabEX CORAIL - Laboratoire d'Excellence CORAIL
3 CRIOBE - Centre de recherches insulaires et observatoire de l'environnement

Justafterthereefcolonization,fishspeciescouldusetheacousticcuetosettleondifferentsuitablehabitats.Inthe present study, we used the auditory evoked potential (AEP) technique to measure and compare the detection abilities in five coral reef fish species, with some of these species that are found in the same habitat. We also ex- aminedtheeffectoffishsizeonsensitivityatthespecieslevel.Allstudiedspeciesexceptoneshowedsize-related changesinsensitivitycharacterizedbyeitheradecrease(i.e.higherAEPthresholds)oranincrease(i.e.lowerAEP thresholds) in detection abilities with increasing size. The interspecific comparison of audiograms revealed that some species are more sensitive than others in terms of sound pressure level and frequency detection. Overall,thisstudy indicatesthattheAEPthresholdandthefrequencybandwidthatearlylifestagesmay vary be- tween andwithin fish species.Thedetectionabilities aredifferent infish species thatarenotphylogeneticallyre- lated, which might suggest that the establishment of their capabilities is not necessarily related to the reef conquest.

Keywords: Coral reef fishes; Auditory evoked potentials; Audiograms; Early life stages; Size groups

Domains: Biodiversity and Ecology

Orphal Colleye, Loic Kéver, David Lecchini, Laëtitia Berten, Eric Parmentier. Auditory evoked potential audiograms in post-settlement stage individuals of coral reef fishes. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, 2016, 483. ⟨hal-01391589⟩