Chirping and asymmetric jamming avoidance responses in the electric fish <i>Distocyclus conirostris</i>.

Electrosensory systems of weakly electric fish must accommodate competing demands of sensing the environment (electrolocation) and receiving social information (electrocommunication). The jamming avoidance response (JAR) is a behavioral strategy thought to reduce electrosensory interference from conspecific signals close in frequency. We used playback experiments to characterize electric organ discharge frequency (EODf), chirping behavior and the JAR of , a gregarious electric fish species. EODs of had low frequencies (∼80-200 Hz) that shifted in response to playback stimuli. Fish consistently lowered EODf in response to higher-frequency stimuli but inconsistently raised or lowered EODf in response to lower-frequency stimuli. This led to jamming avoidance or anti-jamming avoidance, respectively. We compare these behaviors with those of closely related electric fish ( and ) and suggest that the JAR may have additional social functions and may not solely minimize the deleterious effects of jamming, as its name suggests.