Plasticity in the vocalizations of anurans in response to traffic noise

Cunnington, Glenn M.; Fahrig, Lenore

doi:10.1016/j.actao.2010.06.002

Cited by 106 publications

(108 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Green Frogs (Lithobates clamitans) and Northern Leopard Frogs (Lithobates pipiens) significantly increased dominant frequency of their calls in response to traffic noise (L. clamitans: from ca. 480 to 860 Hz in average; L. pipiens: from 850 to 1200 Hz at average; Cunnington & Fahrig 2010). Penna et al (2005) showed that Eupsophus calcaratus increased call duration and call rate in response to abiotic background noise (wind, rain, creek and sea surf), and they suggested these vocal responses are adaptations that allow frogs to cope with high interference with sounds produced by the local acoustic environment.…”

Section: Social Context and Acoustic Environmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Köhler

Jansen

Rodríguez³

et al. 2017

Zootaxa

426

410

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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: Social Context and Acoustic Environmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Köhler

Jansen

Rodríguez³

et al. 2017

Zootaxa

426

410

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“…As previously mentioned, such plasticity often allows for the quickest adaptive phenotypic change in a human-disturbed environment (Van Buskirk 2012), and studies showcasing such plasticity abound. Some birds and anurans, for example, exhibit short-term changes in aspects of acoustic communication in order to overcome anthropogenic background noise (e.g., Gross et al 2010;Cunnington and Fahrig 2010), great tits plastically adjust the timing of reproduction with climate change (Charmantier et al 2008), orangecrowned warblers adjust nesting behavior and parental provisioning in the presence of a novel predator (Peluc et al 2008), etc. While some plastic changes in response to novel environments are adaptive, other plastic changes are clearly maladaptive (e.g., Ghalambor et al 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developmental plasticity in vision and behavior may help guppies overcome increased turbidity

et al. 2015

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“…The majority of studies (60 out and anurans, either through behavioural plasticity or evolutionary adaptation [14,47,48]. Some studies have also considered the impact of masking on adventitious signals [28,49].…”

Section: (A) Behavioural Biasmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…neurological) particularly challenging. Studies that pair different types of work in different settings [48,64] offer the best solution, allowing the benefits of each approach to be used.…”

Section: (B) Difficulties In Drawing Strong Ecologically Valid Conclmentioning

confidence: 99%

The importance of invertebrates when considering the impacts of anthropogenic noise

Morley¹,

Jones

Radford³

2014

Proc. R. Soc. B.

167

163

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Anthropogenic noise is now recognized as a major global pollutant. Rapidly burgeoning research has identified impacts on individual behaviour and physiology through to community disruption. To date, however, there has been an almost exclusive focus on vertebrates. Not only does their central role in food webs and in fulfilling ecosystem services make imperative our understanding of how invertebrates are impacted by all aspects of environmental change, but also many of their inherent characteristics provide opportunities to overcome common issues with the current anthropogenic noise literature. Here, we begin by explaining why invertebrates are likely to be affected by anthropogenic noise, briefly reviewing their capacity for hearing and providing evidence that they are capable of evolutionary adaptation and behavioural plasticity in response to natural noise sources. We then discuss the importance of quantifying accurately and fully both auditory ability and noise content, emphasizing considerations of direct relevance to how invertebrates detect sounds. We showcase how studying invertebrates can help with the behavioural bias in the literature, the difficulties in drawing strong, ecologically valid conclusions and the need for studies on fitness impacts. Finally, we suggest avenues of future research using invertebrates that would advance our understanding of the impact of anthropogenic noise.

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Plasticity in the vocalizations of anurans in response to traffic noise

Cited by 106 publications

References 40 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

Developmental plasticity in vision and behavior may help guppies overcome increased turbidity

The importance of invertebrates when considering the impacts of anthropogenic noise

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