“Reverse” sexual dichromatism in a Neotropical frog

Engelbrecht-Wiggans, Emily; Tumulty, James P.

doi:10.1111/eth.12942

Cited by 7 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 31 publications

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“…Bell and Zamudio [5] found no species reported as having both sexual and ontogenetic dichromatism. However, a recent paper by Engelbrecht-Wiggans and Tumulty [7] has documented both in the aromobatid frog Anomaloglossus beebei.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sexual dichromatism in the neotropical genus Mannophryne (Anura: Aromobatidae)

et al. 2020

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Recent reviews on sexual dichromatism in frogs included Mannophryne trinitatis as the only example they could find of dynamic dichromatism (males turn black when calling) within the family Aromobatidae and found no example of ontogenetic dichromatism in this group. We demonstrate ontogenetic dichromatism in M. trinitatis by rearing post-metamorphic froglets to near maturity: the throats of all individuals started as grey coloured; at around seven weeks, the throat became pale yellow in some, and more strongly yellow as development proceeded; the throats of adults are grey in males and variably bright yellow in females, backed by a dark collar. We demonstrated the degree of throat colour variability by analysing a large sample of females. The red: green (R:G) ratio ranged from~1.1 to 1.4, reflecting variation from yellow to yellow/orange, and there was also variation in the tone and width of the dark collar, and in the extent to which the yellow colouration occurred posterior to the collar. Female M. trinitatis are known to be territorial in behaviour. We show a positive relationship between throat colour (R:G ratio) and escape performance, as a proxy for quality. Our field observations on Tobago's M. olmonae showed variability in female throat colour and confirmed that males in this species also turn black when calling. Our literature review of the 20 Mannophryne species so far named showed that all females have yellow throats with dark collars, and that male colour change to black when calling has been reported in eight species; in the remaining 12 species, descriptions of males calling are usually lacking so far. We predict that both dynamic and ontogenetic sexual dichromatism are universal in this genus and provide discussion of the ecological role of dichromatism in this genus of predominantly diurnal, non-toxic frogs, with strong paternal care of offspring.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sexual dichromatism in the neotropical genus Mannophryne (Anura: Aromobatidae)

et al. 2020

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Sexual dichromatism in a cryptic poison frog is correlated with female tadpole transport

et al. 2022

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Sexual dichromatism has provided important information for understanding sexual selection, but its link to reproductive success has received little attention. Poison frogs and their relatives within the superfamily Dendrobatoidea present striking color variation. Despite this variability, evidence of sexual dichromatism in the over 330 species described is limited to the gular region of some cryptically colored species. Colostethus imbricolus is a cryptically colored dendrobatid with distinct orange and yellow spots at the axillar, inguinal and femoral regions. Here we show that these spots stand clearly out from the environment during behavioral displays and that they present marked sexual differences in their conspicuousness, with females having more conspicuous spots. Unlike most species of Dendrobatoidea that provide parental care in the form of male tadpole transport, we found that in C. imbricolus, females performed this behavior. By correlating color measurements and behavioral observations, we show that females with a higher number of transported tadpoles are also the most conspicuous. Our findings show a significant association between sexual dichromatism of the spots and female parental care while opening exciting perspectives for the occurrence of both traits. In addition, our results provide significant insights to address the function of dual-color patterns (i.e., cryptic from distance-aposematic from nearby) in amphibians.

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