Activity-dependent uptake and release of the fluorescent probe FM1-43 were used to compare synaptic performance (rates of transmitter release and synaptic vesicle turnover) at different frequencies in phasic and tonic motor neurons innervating the crayfish leg extensor muscle and in the tonic motor neuron of the opener muscle. The phasic extensor motor neuron, which has a high quantal content of transmitter release, accumulated and released FM1-43 more rapidly than the tonic motor neuron, especially at low frequencies of stimulation. Individual bright spots appeared on the varicosities of the junctional terminals during stimulation in FM1-43; these spots corresponded to zones of immunostaining for the synaptic vesicle associated protein synaptotagmin, but they were larger and less numerous than synapses identified by electron microscopy and appear to represent one to several synapses with their associated clusters of synaptic vesicles. The number of bright spots observed on varicosities of the tonic terminal after stimulation at >/=20 Hz is generally similar to values for responding units (n) calculated from binomial distributions derived from quantal analysis. At frequencies of </=10 Hz, bright spots did not usually appear on tonic extensor varicosities, and the quantal release patterns were best fitted with Poisson distributions. Another tonic motor neuron, the excitor of the opener muscle, showed individual bright spots at lower frequencies of stimulation, consistent with its higher quantal output at these frequencies and corresponding with the binomial fits for quantal release distributions. In this axon, the number of distinctive bright spots increased with frequency in the 2- to 20-Hz range, indicating increased participation of synapses during frequency facilitation. In the tonic extensor neuron terminals, the brightness and the size of the individual spots increased with frequency, and new foci of dye uptake appeared at the edges of preexisting spots. Relative intensity change varied considerably among individual spots during dye loading at different frequencies. Similarly, individual spots on a single tonic terminal destained at different rates when stimulated after previous loading with FM1-43. These results suggest differential performance of individual synapses or small groups of synapses, some being more effective in transmitter release than others, as inferred from previous ultrastructural and quantal analysis studies. The large overall differences between phasic and tonic synapses suggest differential regulation of transmitter release at individual synapses in the two neurons.