Abstract
The characteristics of male anurans’ calls play an important role in mating success during the breeding season. In this study, we analyzed intra- and inter-individual variability of the advertisement calls of the pale-shouldered horned toad (Xenophrys boettgeri) in the field during its breeding season in Lishui, Zhejiang Province, China. The results showed that some acoustic parameters were significantly correlated with morphological features and air temperature. Most acoustic parameters including note numbers, call duration, and dominant frequency were static, whereas the call interval was intermediate. The CVb/CVw ratio was greater than 1.0 for all acoustic parameters analyzed, with between-individual variation being higher than within-individual variation. Furthermore, the acoustic parameter results of principle component analysis and discriminant function analysis indicated that note numbers and call interval are potentially useful for individual discrimination of X. boettgeri.
Highlights
In anurans, species recognition and female preference typically depend on acoustic signals (Rodríguez-Tejeda et al 2014; Toledo et al 2015; Forti et al 2016; Viuchelozano et al 2018)
Prior to DFA, we reduced the dimensionality of the data using a principal component analysis (PCA)
We found that morphological features (SVL and body mass) significantly affected both temporal parameters
Summary
Species recognition and female preference typically depend on acoustic signals (Rodríguez-Tejeda et al 2014; Toledo et al 2015; Forti et al 2016; Viuchelozano et al 2018). Advertisement calls have been widely studied because they characterize species-specific courtship signals (Chuang et al 2016; Da Veiga Teixeira et al 2016; Galvis et al 2016; Modak et al 2016; Serrano 2016; Bosch et al 2017). Sexual selection and environmental conditions may result in variation in advertisement call characteristics among individuals and populations (Shen et al 2015; Forti et al 2016; Lee et al 2016; Bosch et al 2017)
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