Limited effects of traffic noise on behavioural responses to conspecific mating calls in the eastern sedge frog Litoria fallax

Abstract

Anthropogenic noise is a pervasive environmental feature across both urban and non-urban habitats and presents a novel challenge especially for acoustically communicating species. While it is known that some species adjust acoustic signals to communicate more effectively in noisy habitats, we know very little about how the receivers of these signals might be impacted by anthropogenic noise. Here, we investigated female and male Litoria fallax frogs’ ability to distinguish between high- and low-quality acoustic signals during the presence of background traffic noise and without. We performed a controlled behavioural experiment whereby frogs were presented with simultaneously broadcasted attractive and unattractive calls from opposing directions, once with background traffic noise and once without. We found that females in particular chose the unattractive call significantly more often (and males significantly less often) when noise was being broadcast. This indicates that anthropogenic noise potentially affects receiver responses to acoustic signals, even when calls are not acoustically masked, with potential consequences for maladaptive mating behaviours and population outcomes. Supplementary information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10211-021-00378-7.

Comparative transcriptome analysis provides insights into the molecular mechanisms of high-frequency hearing differences between the sexes of Odorrana tormota

“…Evidences shown that male O. tormota can communicate with intraspecific species through high-frequency acoustic signals, which required greater energy expenditure to accomplish [ 19 , 22 ]. Sound playbacks and electrophysiological experiments have found that female frogs preferred males with a small body size and a louder calls to complete mating [ 20 , 68 ]. Thus, males O. tormota might have evolved higher energy metabolic systems to enhance their own calls frequency and mate attraction.…”