The combined effect of intensity and the temporal relationship of stimuli on the phonotactic responses of female painted reed frogs Hyperolius marmoratus.

Dyson, Miranda L. and Passmore, Neville I. (1988). The combined effect of intensity and the temporal relationship of stimuli on the phonotactic responses of female painted reed frogs Hyperolius marmoratus. Animal Behaviour, 36(5) pp. 1555–1556.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0003-3472(88)80232-X

Abstract

Two-choice phonotaxis has long been a useful experimental tool for determining the effects of variation in male call characteristics on female mating preferences. Such studies have revealed an almost universal preference by females for low frequency calls (Ryan 1980, 1983; Forester & Czarnowsky 1985; Robertson 1986; Telford & Passmore, unpublished data) and high intensity calls (Fellers 1979; Arak 1983a; Dyson 1985; Forester & Czarnowsky 1985). Because call intensity cannot be used by females as a cue for assessing male fitness attributes (Arak 1983b), preferences displayed by females for high intensity calls have provided a unique opportunity to test the validity of evoking adaptive female choice to explain frequency preferences. By decreasing the intensity of the low frequency call relative to its high frequency alternative, it has been established that call intensity has a powerful overriding influence on female preferences for low frequency calls (Schwartz 1986; Telford & Passmore, unpublished data; but see Robertson 1986). Recently, we established (Dyson & Passmore 1988) that altering the temporal relationship between two identical stimuli, thereby introducing a leader-follower call pattern, is another factor influencing female mating preferences. Under these conditions, females respond exclusively to the leading call. Additional experiments using different frequency calls with the same temporal relationship revealed that a preference for leading calls is frequency-independent (Dyson & Passmore 1988). These, and previous results, established that both call intensity and call leadership negate female ability and/or tendency to select males on the basis of call frequency. We attempted to determine whether the selective response by females to leading calls persists when an intensity difference between the leading and following calls occurs or whether, like frequency preferences, leadership preferences are intensity-dependent.

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