Importance of the receiver's height for transmission studies in acoustic ecology

Author:

Iglesias-Merchan Carlos12ORCID,Llusia Diego34ORCID,Márquez Rafael5ORCID

Affiliation:

1. Department of Forest and Environmental Engineering and Management, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid 1 , Calle José Antonio Nováis, 10. 28040 Madrid, Spain

2. Centro de I+D+i para la Conservación de la Biodiversidad y el Desarrollo Sostenible (CBDS), ETSI Montes, Forestal y del Medio Natural, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid 2 , Calle José Antonio Nováis, Madrid, 10. 28040, Spain

3. Terrestrial Ecology Group (TEG), Departamento de Ecología, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid 3 , 28049, Madrid, Spain

4. Centro de Investigación en Biodiversidad y Cambio Global (CIBC-UAM), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid 4 , Calle Darwin, 2. 28409 Madrid, Spain

5. Fonoteca Zoológica, Departamento de Biodiversidad y Biología Evolutiva, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, CSIC 5 , Calle José Gutiérrez Abascal, 2. 28006 Madrid, Spain

Abstract

In animal communication, the sound pressure level (SPL) of the acoustic signals has been studied in relation to various biological functions. Previous research reported that senders and receivers benefit from being at elevated positions. However, sometimes, researchers find contradictory results. Using a transmission experiment, we measured SPL of two acoustic stimuli: (i) white noise, and (ii) advertisement calls of the Iberian tree frog (Hyla molleri) at two different heights above ground level (0.05 and 0.75 m) and from six distances (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, and 32 m) from a loudspeaker. Calls of the Iberian tree frog have two spectral peaks centred at the frequencies of ca. 1 and 2 kHz. As expected, SPL decreased with distance, but following a distinct attenuation pattern across height above the ground and frequency. Our findings show that the ground effect may critically alter frequency attenuation and, therefore, signal composition and discrimination at the listener's location, even at low heights above the ground. We suggest that recording devices should be positioned at the same height that natural listeners are usually located in nature, to facilitate the replication and comparison of experiments in the field of acoustic ecology and, also, bioacoustics.

Publisher

Acoustical Society of America (ASA)

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