Multiple signals and male spacing affect female preference at cocktail parties in treefrogs

Effective acoustic communication in the face of intense conspecific background noise constitutes a constant sensory challenge in chorusing and colonial species. An evolutionary approach suggests that behavioural and environmental constraints in these species should have shaped signal design and sign...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the Royal Society. B, Biological sciences Biological sciences, 2010-04, Vol.277 (1685), p.1247-1252
Main Authors: Richardson, Christina, Lengagne, Thierry
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acoustic noise
Amphibians
Animal Communication
Animals
Anura
Anurans
Background Noise
Biodiversity and Ecology
Environmental Sciences
Female
Female animals
Gender discrimination
Hyla arborea
Loudspeakers
Male
Male animals
Mate Choice
Mating behavior
Multiple Signals
Ranidae - physiology
Sexual Behavior, Animal - physiology
Sexual Selection
Signal noise
Signals
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Summary:Effective acoustic communication in the face of intense conspecific background noise constitutes a constant sensory challenge in chorusing and colonial species. An evolutionary approach suggests that behavioural and environmental constraints in these species should have shaped signal design and signalling behaviour to enable communication in noisy conditions. This could be attained both through the use of multicomponent signals and through short-term adjustments in the spatial separation of calling males. We investigated these two hypotheses in a chorusing anuran, the hylid Hyla arborea, through a series of phonotaxis experiments conducted within a six-speaker arena in a high background noise situation, by presenting females with male calls containing either single or multiple attractive call components, and by modifying distances between speakers. We found that female ability to discriminate attractive calls increased when several attractive call components were available, providing novel evidence that the use of multicomponent signals enhances communication in complex acoustic conditions. Signal discrimination in females also improved with speaker separation, demonstrating that within natural choruses, spatial unmasking conditioned by male density and spatial separation probably improves female discrimination of competing males. Implications of these results for the accuracy of mate choice within choruses are discussed.
ISSN:0962-8452
1471-2945
1471-2954
DOI:10.1098/rspb.2009.1836