This proposal is for funds to help support an international, interdisciplinary conference entitled The Evolutionary Biology of Hearing: Comparative Hearing in Vertebrates, to be held in Sarasota, Florida, May 20-24, 1990. Expected are 44 participants presenting at the meeting, and about 50 additional registrants who will come as attendees to the conference. All presenters and other attendees will be scientists with a particular interest in the evolution of hearing. The conferences's major goals are: 1. To present an integrated understanding of peripheral and central auditory mechanisms in an evolutionary context; 2. To provide a structured forum for the development and exchange of ideas and research findings on hearing adaptation and evolution; 3. To integrate recent anatomical, physiological, and psychophysical findings into an understanding of the evolution of hearing; 4. To synthesize the data, methods, emergent principles, and future trends in the study of the evolutionary biology of hearing in a tightly-edited and integrated volume. The conference will bring together 45 international scientists who are leaders in studies of animal hearing and of the evolution of hearing and the auditory system in both vertebrates and invertebrates. Approximately thirty-five presentations, from the viewpoints of comparative anatomy, physiology, biophysics, acoustic behavior, psychophysics, evolutionary biology, ontogeny, and paleontology, will synthesize past and current research.