University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover Institute of Zoology Acoustic communication in noise: the gray mouse lemur as a primate model THESIS

Acoustic communication in noise: the gray mouse lemur as a primate model THESIS Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree-Doctor rerum naturalium-Sponsorship: The author of this thesis received a Georg-Christoph-Lichtenberg scholarship of Lower Saxony, Germany as well as financial support for finishing the thesis by the Center for Systems Neuroscience. Parts of this thesis were presented to a scientific audience on the following occasions: 2010: Talk at the 23rd Congress of the International Primatological Society (Kyoto, Japan): " Noise-dependent vocal plasticity in a nocturnal primate? " 2011: Poster presentation at the 23rd Meeting of the International Bioacoustics Council (IBAC), (La Rochelle, France): " Noise-dependent vocal plasticity in a nocturnal primate? " 2012: Talk at the 105. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Zoologischen Gesellschaft (Konstanz, Germany): " Hearing in aging grey mouse lemurs (Microcebus murinus). " 2013: Talk at the 13th Conference of the Gesellschaft für Primatologie (Hamburg, Germany): " Hearing in aging grey mouse lemurs (Microcebus murinus). " Poster presentation at the 36th Annual MidWinter Meeting of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology (Baltimore, USA): " BERA in Aging Grey Mouse Lemurs (Microcebus murinus). " Poster presentation at the 10th Göttingen Meeting of the German Neuroscience Society (Göttingen, Germany): " Hearing during aging in the emerging primate brain aging model : a BERA study. " Chapters 2 and 3 of this thesis have been submitted for publication in peer-reviewed, scientific journals. In terms of content, chapter 2 and chapter 3 of this thesis are identical to the respective, submitted manuscript. However, some minor modifications have been made to the text for consistency in writing style and layout. Title: Objective assessment of hearing and age-related changes in the gray mouse lemur.