Hematophagous Flies Attracted to Frog Calls in a Preserved Seasonal Forest of the Austral Neotropics, with a Description of a New Species of Corethrella (Diptera: Corethrellidae).

Abstract

The signaler-eavesdropper interaction has been investigated for a wide range of organisms, and although many flies feed on calling frogs, this dynamic has been addressed only poorly in the austral Neotropics. We investigated this interaction in southern Brazil using pairs of suction traps (acoustic + silent) broadcasting frog calls or an artificial white noise in ponds and streams. From 139 sessions, flies of the genera Corethrella (Corethrellidae), Forcipomyia (Ceratopogonidae) and Uranotaenia (Culicidae) were collected, including five Corethrella species, the most abundant of which was previously unknown and is formally described here. Additionally, we present the southernmost records of Corethrella lopesi, C. alticola and C. atricornis. Numbers of Forcipomyia midges and Uranotaenia mosquitoes did not differ between silent traps and traps broadcasting frog calls, and did not differ between white noise traps and adjacent silent traps. However, the number of female Corethrella was significantly higher in traps broadcasting calls of the pond-breeding frog P. aff. gracilis compared to adjacent silent traps; calls of this frog attracted the five Corethrella species and also collected significantly more female Corethrella than the white noise. By evaluating different taxa of flies and broadcasting different sounds, we demonstrated that Corethrella midges were attracted only to the acoustic cue of P. aff. gracilis calls, while Forcipomyia and Uranotaenia were captured in traps by chance. Our results suggest that female Corethrella feed on males of the common pond-breeding frog P. aff. gracilis in southern Brazil, and highlight the utility of frog call traps in revealing the diversity of Corethrella in the austral Neotropics.