Abstract
In animal communication, receivers benefit from signals providing reliable information on signalers’ traits of interest. Individuals involved in conflicts, such as competition between rivals, should pay particular attention to cues that are “unfakeable” by the senders due to the intrinsic properties of the production process. In bioacoustics, the best-known example of such “index signals” is the relationship between a sender’s body size and the dominant frequency of their vocalizations. Dominant frequency may, however, not only depend on an animal’s morphology but also on the interaction between the sound production system and its immediate environment. Here, we experimentally altered the environment surrounding calling frogs and assessed its impact on the signal produced. Our results show that frogs that are floating are able to inflate their vocal sacs fully and that this change in inflation level is correlated with a decrease of call dominant frequency.
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Data availability
Data is available from the Dryad Digital Repository: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.jq2bvq86b and https://datadryad.org/stash/share/PQkNyeZKg3s0oU21Ssy-x0jeB6d3fBXtdapngzpVwTw.
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The research was funded through a Smithsonian fellowship to W.H.
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W.H. conceived and designed the study and coordinated the data collection and analysis. S.G. analyzed the data and wrote the paper. All authors contributed to the interpretation of the data and subsequent manuscript writing and revisions. All authors agreed to be held accountable for the content therein and approve the final version.
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All experiments with frogs were licensed and approved by STRI (IACUC permit: 2014-0805-2017) and the Autoridad Nacional del Ambiente de Panama (SE/A-82–14).
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Communicated by: Matthias Waltert & Paula Roig Boixeda
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Goutte, S., Muñoz, M.I., Ryan, M.J. et al. Floating frogs sound larger: environmental constraints on signal production drives call frequency changes. Sci Nat 107, 41 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-020-01697-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-020-01697-8