Advertisement Call Complexity in Northern Leopard Frogs, Rana pipiens

Larson, Krista A.

doi:10.1643/ch-03-247r2

Cited by 24 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…This in particular applies to the sound signal most frequently emitted by males (in some species also by females; Emerson & Boyd 1999;Boistel & Sueur 1997;review in Preininger et al 2016) during the breeding season, the advertisement call (sensu Wells 1977). This call type was named mating call by Bogert (1960) and referred to under yet different names by different authors (e.g., breeding call, sex call, sex trills, courtship call, initial call, warm up call, sporadic call or chuckle call; Larson 2004;Toledo et al 2015a). Advertisement calls are those conspicuous calls typically heard in the wild and they apparently serve two main functions: attracting potential mates and conveying territorial information to conspecifics.…”

Section: Functional Categories Of Anuran Vocalizationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Most of the studies reviewed (Table 4) used a set of calls that typically comprised 3-70 calls per individual (15 in average; data not shown), with the exceptions of Friedl & Klump (2002), Larson (2004), , Rosso et al (2006) and Reichert (2013a), who analyzed more than 250 calls per individual. Thus, the actual call variation during sustained calling through a defined period might be underestimated (see below), and our knowledge on the plasticity of vocalizations is still quite limited (Dyson et al 2013).…”

Section: Static and Dynamic Call Traitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The use of bioacoustics in anuran taxonomy: theory, terminology, methods and recommendations for best practice

Köhler

Jansen

Rodríguez³

et al. 2017

Zootaxa

424

402

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Vocalizations of anuran amphibians have received much attention in studies of behavioral ecology and physiology, but also provide informative characters for identifying and delimiting species. We here review the terminology and variation of frog calls from a perspective of integrative taxonomy, and provide hands-on protocols for recording, analyzing, comparing, interpreting and describing these sounds. Our focus is on advertisement calls, which serve as premating isolation mechanisms and, therefore, convey important taxonomic information. We provide recommendations for terminology of frog vocalizations, with call, note and pulse being the fundamental subunits to be used in descriptions and comparisons. However, due to the complexity and diversity of these signals, an unequivocal application of the terms call and note can be challenging. We therefore provide two coherent concepts that either follow a note-centered approach (defining uninterrupted units of sound as notes, and their entirety as call) or a call-centered approach (defining uninterrupted units as call whenever they are separated by long silent intervals) in terminology. Based on surveys of literature, we show that numerous call traits can be highly variable within and between individuals of one species. Despite idiosyncrasies of species and higher taxa, the duration of calls or notes, pulse rate within notes, and number of pulses per note appear to be more static within individuals and somewhat less affected by temperature. Therefore, these variables might often be preferable as taxonomic characters over call rate or note rate, which are heavily influenced by various factors. Dominant frequency is also comparatively static and only weakly affected by temperature, but depends strongly on body size. As with other taxonomic characters, strong call divergence is typically indicative of species-level differences, whereas call similarities of two populations are no evidence for them being conspecific. Taxonomic conclusions can especially be drawn when the general advertisement call structure of two candidate species is radically different and qualitative call differences are thus observed. On the other hand, quantitative differences in call traits might substantially vary within and among conspecific populations, and require careful evaluation and analysis. We provide guidelines for the taxonomic interpretation of advertisement call differences in sympatric and allopatric situations, and emphasize the need for an integrative use of multiple datasets (bio-acoustics, morphology, genetics), particularly for allopatric scenarios. We show that small-sized frogs often emit calls with frequency components in the ultrasound spectrum, although it is unlikely that these high frequencies are of biological relevance for the majority of them, and we illustrate that detection of upper harmonics depends also on recording distance because higher frequencies are attenuated more strongly. Bioacoustics remains a prime approach in integrative taxonomy of anurans if uncertainty due to possible intraspecific variation and technical artifacts is adequately considered and acknowledged.

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Section: Functional Categories Of Anuran Vocalizationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Static and Dynamic Call Traitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The use of bioacoustics in anuran taxonomy: theory, terminology, methods and recommendations for best practice

Köhler

Jansen

Rodríguez³

et al. 2017

Zootaxa

424

402

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Many frogs produce vocalizations consisting of sequentially produced call types (Larson, 2004; Ryan, 1985) or temporally repeated pulses (Gerhardt, 1991; Castellano & Giacoma, 1998; Howard & Young, 1998; Friedl, 2006). In frogs with pulsed advertisement calls, the rate of temporally repeated pulses is often an important acoustic property for species recognition (reviewed in Gerhardt & Huber, 2002), and the number of pulses per call can serve as an honest indicator of male genetic quality (Welch et al, 1998).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Does common spatial origin promote the auditory grouping of temporally separated signal elements in grey treefrogs?

Bee

Riemersma

2008

Animal Behaviour

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‘Sequential integration’ represents a form of auditory grouping in which temporally separated sounds produced by the same source are perceptually bound together over time into a coherent ‘auditory stream’. In humans, sequential integration plays important roles in music and speech perception. In this study of the grey treefrog (Hyla chrysoscelis), we took advantage of female selectivity for advertisement calls with conspecific pulse rates to investigate common spatial location as a cue for sequential integration. We presented females with two temporally interleaved pulse sequences with pulse rates of 25 pulses/s, which is half the conspecific pulse rate and more similar to that of H. versicolor, a syntopically breeding heterospecific. We tested the hypothesis that common spatial origin between the two pulse sequences would promote their integration into a coherent auditory stream with an attractive conspecific pulse rate. As the spatial separation between the speakers broadcasting the interleaved pulse sequences decreased from 180° to 0°, more females responded and females exhibited shorter response latencies and travelled shorter distances en route to a speaker. However, even in the 180° condition, most females (74%) still responded. Detailed video analyses revealed no evidence to suggest that patterns of female phonotaxis resulted from impaired abilities to localize sound sources in the spatially separated conditions. Together, our results suggest that females were fairly permissive of spatial incoherence between the interleaved pulses sequences and that common spatial origin may be only a relatively weak cue for sequential integration in grey treefrogs.

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“…Male Rana pipiens produce broadband calls of at least three types (Mecham 1971). There is significant within- and between-male variance in the frequency content of each call type (Larson 2004). The ability to quickly detect changes in frequency potentially enables receivers (male or female) to detect changes in call type and source identity during the complex sequences of calling found in the male chorus (Larson 2004).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stimulus change detection in phasic auditory units in the frog midbrain: frequency and ear specific adaptation

2013

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Neural adaptation, a reduction in the response to a maintained stimulus, is an important mechanism for detecting stimulus change. Contributing to change detection is the fact that adaptation is often stimulus specific: adaptation to a particular stimulus reduces excitability to a specific subset of stimuli, while the ability to respond to other stimuli is unaffected. Phasic cells (e.g., cells responding to stimulus onset) are good candidates for detecting the most rapid changes in natural auditory scenes, as they exhibit fast and complete adaptation to an initial stimulus presentation. We made recordings of single phasic auditory units in the frog midbrain to determine if adaptation was specific to stimulus frequency and ear of input. In response to an instantaneous frequency step in a tone, 28 % of phasic cells exhibited frequency specific adaptation based on a relative frequency change (delta-f = ±16 %). Frequency specific adaptation was not limited to frequency steps, however, as adaptation was also overcome during continuous frequency modulated stimuli and in response to spectral transients interrupting tones. The results suggest that adaptation is separated for peripheral (e.g., frequency) channels. This was tested directly using dichotic stimuli. In 45 % of binaural phasic units, adaptation was ear specific: adaptation to stimulation of one ear did not affect responses to stimulation of the other ear. Thus, adaptation exhibited specificity for stimulus frequency and lateralization at the level of the midbrain. This mechanism could be employed to detect rapid stimulus change within and between sound sources in complex acoustic environments.

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Advertisement Call Complexity in Northern Leopard Frogs, Rana pipiens

Cited by 24 publications

References 46 publications

The use of bioacoustics in anuran taxonomy: theory, terminology, methods and recommendations for best practice

The use of bioacoustics in anuran taxonomy: theory, terminology, methods and recommendations for best practice

Does common spatial origin promote the auditory grouping of temporally separated signal elements in grey treefrogs?

Stimulus change detection in phasic auditory units in the frog midbrain: frequency and ear specific adaptation

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