Fish hearing specialization - a re-evaluation1

Investigators working with fish bioacoustics used to refer to fishes that have a narrow hearing bandwidth and poor sensitivity as hearing generalists (or non-specialists), while fishes that could detect a wider hearing bandwidth and had greater sensitivity were referred to as specialists. However, as more was learned about fish hearing mechanism and capacities, these terms became hard to apply since it was clear there were gradations in hearing capabilities. Popper and Fay, in a paper in Hearing Research in 2011, proposed that these terms be dropped because of the gradation. While this was widely accepted by investigators, it is now apparent that the lack of relatively concise terminology for fish hearing capabilities makes it hard to discuss fish hearing. Thus, in this paper we resurrect the terms specialist and non-specialist but use them with modifiers to express the specific structure of function that is considered a specialization. Moreover, this resurrection recognizes that hearing specializations in fishes may not only be related to increased bandwidth and/or sensitivity, but to other, perhaps more important, aspects of hearing such as sound source localization, discrimination between sounds, and detection of sounds in the presence of masking signals.(c) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

Investigators in fish bioacoustics used to classify fishes as hearing generalists or specialists based on their hearing bandwidth and sensitivity. However, as understanding of fish hearing mechanisms grew, these terms became insufficient due to the existence of gradations in hearing capabilities. This paper proposes the resurrection of the terms specialist and non-specialist, but with modifiers to specify the particular functional structure considered as a specialization. It also highlights the importance of other aspects of fish hearing, such as sound source localization and discrimination, in addition to increased bandwidth and sensitivity.