Male serrate-legged treefrogs adjust competition strategies according to visual or chemical cues from females

Abstract

There is increasing evidence that many anurans use multimodal cues to detect, discriminate and/or locate conspecifics and thus modify their behaviors. To date, however, most studies have focused on the roles of multimodal cues in female choice or male-male interactions. In the present study, we conducted an experiment to investigate whether male serrate-legged small treefrogs (Kurixalus odontotarsus) used visual or chemical cues to detect females and thus altered their competition strategies in different calling contexts. Three acoustic stimuli (advertisement calls, aggressive calls and compound calls) were broadcast in a randomized order after a spontaneous period to focal males in one of four treatment groups: combined visual and chemical cues of a female, only chemical cues, only visual cues and a control (with no females). We recorded the vocal responses of the focal males during each 3-min period. Our results demonstrate that males reduce total number of calls in response to the presence of females, regardless of how they perceived the females. In response to advertisement calls and compound calls, males that perceived females through chemical cues produced relatively fewer advertisement calls but more aggressive calls. In addition, they produced relatively more aggressive calls during the playback of aggressive calls. Taken together, our study suggests that male K. odontotarsus adjust their competition strategies according to the visual or chemical cues of potential mates and highlights the important role of multisensory cues in male frogs’ perception of females.

Females and males respond differently to calls impaired by noise in a tree frog

“…Our study was conducted from May to August 2020 at the Mt. 42 × 32 × 90 cm), which were far from choruses (Deng et al, 2020).…”

Network analysis reveals context-dependent structural complexity of social calls in serrate-legged small treefrogs

“…Females show a preference for longer calls ( Deng et al 2019 , 2022 ). Previous studies also demonstrated that advertisement calls elicit a vocal response and induce rivals to emit more aggressive calls ( Zhu et al 2017b ; Deng et al 2020 ). In addition, males emit relatively more encounter calls and compound calls in competitive context (field observations).…”

Conspecific disturbance odors act as alarm cues to affect female mate choice in a treefrog

“…1B), and females prefer calls with the highest number of A notes (Zhu et al 2017;Deng et al 2019). Previous studies demonstrated that male frogs reduce their call rate when perceiving the odor cues of females (Deng et al 2020). Furthermore, distinct odors can be detectable when frogs (both sexes) are severely disturbed (e.g., roughly handled or even squeezed), which may provide a chemical alarm cue to conspecifics (Deng et al 2021).…”

“…Recently, evidence has accumulated that additional or alternative sensory modalities may also play an important role in the communication systems of many anuran species (Starnberger et al 2014;Halfwerk et al 2019). The integration of these multisensory signals and cues can facilitate intraspecific detection (Caldwell et al 2010;Reichert 2013;Deng et al 2020) or elicit enhanced malemale competition (Preininger et al 2013;Halfwerk et al 2014;Still et al 2019). Furthermore, studies with túngara frogs showed that females prefer advertisement calls accompanied by the visual cues of an inflating vocal sac when compared to calls alone, indicating that multisensory mating displays can evolve via increased attractiveness and mating success (Rosenthal et al 2004;Taylor et al 2008).…”