Saccular potentials of the male round goby, Neogobius melanostomus, a hearing non-specialist

Abstract

The round goby (Neogobius melanostomus) is a benthic fish species native to Central Eurasia but has colonized much of the waterways in the Laurentian Great Lakes in North America. While they are known to produce acoustic signals that aid in conspecific agonistic and reproductive interactions, the species does not possess a swim bladder and thus does not have any hearing specializations that would allow for sound pressure detection. Here, the auditory evoked potentials from saccular hair cells were characterized to determine the frequency response and auditory sensitivity of the saccule. Saccular potentials were recorded from the medial region of the saccular maculae during playback of single frequency acoustic stimuli (105–605 Hz). Auditory tuning curves based on both sound pressure (dB re: 1 μPa.) and particle acceleration (dB re: 1 ms⁻²) suggest that the saccule is most sensitive to 105 and 125 Hz and that the highest thresholds occurred at frequencies ≥205 Hz.