Interfering sounds from biotic and abiotic origins are likely to shape the responsiveness of sound communicating animals. Among these sources of interference, interactions among acoustically active species have been studied to quite a limited extent. The vocal responses of 20 male frogs Batrachyla leptopus from the temperate austral forest in Chile were tested with conspecific calls and with the calls of two sympatric species: Batrachyla taeniata and Batrachyla antartandica, broadcast at amplitudes of 73, 79, 85, 91 and 97 dB SPL peak. Also, the vocal activity of the subjects during exposure to a 3-min continuous broadband noise presented at 67 dB SPL RMS was monitored. The subjects gave higher responses on average to the conspecific relative to the heterospecific calls, but in most comparisons, these differences did not reach levels of significance. In addition, the vocal activity of males of B. leptopus did not increase in the presence of the continuous broadband noise. The lack of clear preferential responses for conspecific signals contrasts with the sharp selectivities that B. taeniata and B. antartandica have shown for their own calls in previous studies. Such different vocal behavior could be related to the extensive geographic overlap of B. leptopus with the two other species in the temperate austral forest, where mixed choruses of this species with each of the two congeneric taxa have been reported to occur occasionally. The lack of vocal activation in the presence of continuous noise also contrasts with the increased vocal output with which the other two taxa respond to this intrusion and is likely to result from a relatively high spontaneous vocal activity in B. leptopus.

Animals adopt different strategies to communicate by means of sound in noisy environments such that some species increase, while others decrease their vocal activity in the presence of interference. Anuran amphibians from diverse latitudes exhibit both kinds of responses. Recent studies have shown that males of Batrachyla taeniata and Batrachyla antartandica from the temperate austral forest do not call in response to the presentation of advertisement calls of sympatric congeneric species. In contrast, Batrachyla leptopus responds to these signals in a similar way as to conspecific calls. The responsiveness of B. taeniata to natural abiotic interference has also been tested and found that noises of such sources produce strong increases in vocal activity. To assess the diversity in responsiveness to acoustic intrusion in this group, we exposed males of B. leptopus and B. antartandica to prolonged pre‐recorded natural abiotic noises of wind, creek, rain, and to a band‐pass noise centered at 2,000 Hz, at 67 dB Sound Pressure Level (SPL). The subjects did not increase their vocal activity significantly when exposed to these sounds and to band‐pass noise at increasing intensities (55–79 dB SPL). These results contrast with the increase in vocal activity observed previously in B. taeniata to continuous abiotic noise and point to the existence of diverse strategies to confront acoustic intrusion among related species. The lack of vocal activation observed also contrasts with the responsiveness of B. leptopus to heterospecific signals, but parallels the lack of response to such sounds in B. antartandica. Furthermore, the results obtained contrast with the responsiveness of these species to synthetic prolonged sounds observed in previous studies, suggesting that the modes of responses to acoustic intrusion may depend on previous experience, rather than having a species‐specific nature.