Drop dead! Female mate avoidance in an explosively breeding frog

Abstract

Males’ and females’ reproductive strategies may differ, potentially leading to sexual conflict. Increased efforts by males (harassment, forced copulation, intimidation) to gain access to females could even negatively affect female survival and thus lead to reproductive failure for both individuals. In anurans, a higher mortality risk of mating females has been reported in explosive breeding species. During these mating events, several males cling to a female, which are mostly unable to get rid of the unwanted males. This can lead to the female's death. From the literature, it seems that females of explosive breeding frogs have no means to reject unwanted males. Here we describe female mate avoidance behaviours in the European common frog. We observed three female avoidance behaviours, namely ‘rotation’, ‘release call(s)’ and tonic immobility (death feigning). These behaviours were significantly associated with smaller female body size, and smaller females were more successful in escaping amplexus. Tonic immobility as a tactic to avoid mating or male harassment has only been observed in a handful of species and only in one other amphibian. Our observations show that females in explosive breeding frogs may not be as passive and helpless as previously thought.

Burying in lake sediments: A potential tactic used by female northern map turtles to avoid male harassment

“…The reproductive ecology of northern map turtles is similar in many respects to that of other species in which male density is high and females are briefly aggregated around an essential resource such as an overwintering site or a breeding pond that cannot be defended or monopolized by males. Such mating systems include red-sided garter snakes at communal overwintering sites (Shine et al, 2000(Shine et al, , 2005 and European common frogs (Rana temporaria) at breeding ponds (Dittrich & Rödel, 2023). In these mating systems, females experience high levels of male harassment and use tactics to avoid males.…”

“…In many species, females may mitigate the cost of resistance by avoiding male detection rather than by physically resisting mating attempts. Female tactics used to avoid male detection are diverse and include hiding (Krupa et al, 1990;Pineaux & Turgeon, 2016), male mimicry (Cook et al, 1994;Falk et al, 2021;Galán & Price, 2000;Gosden & Svensson, 2009), concealing visual cues (Ide, 2011), semiochemical crypsis (Fischer et al, 2018), dispersing from habitats with high male density (Shine et al, 2005), and even feigning death (Dittrich & Rödel, 2023;Khelifa, 2017).…”