Lusitanian toadfish song reflects male quality

Abstract

Lusitanian toadfish males that provide parental care rely on acoustic signals (the boatwhistle) to attract females to their nest. We test the hypothesis that male quality, namely male size and condition that are relevant for parental success, is reflected in vocal activity and boatwhistle characteristics and thus advertised to females. We recorded 22 males over a week during the peak of the breeding season. Calling rate and calling effort (percentage of time spent calling) strongly reflected male condition (lipid content of somatic muscles) and to a smaller extent sonic muscle hypertrophy and larger gonads. Males in better condition (increased body lipid and relative higher liver mass) also contracted the sonic muscles at faster rate as shown by the shorter boatwhistle pulse periods. Amplitude modulation reflected the degree of sonic muscle hypertrophy. None of the measured male quality parameters were good predictors of boatwhistle duration and dominant frequency. Altogether this study strongly suggests that Lusitanian toadfish males advertise their quality to females primarily with boatwhistle calling rate and calling effort, which mainly reflect male condition. Because pulse period had low variability, consistent with the existence of a vocal central pattern generator, we suggest that males that sustain sonic muscles contraction at a very fast rate close to their physiological limit may be honestly advertising their quality (condition). Similarly, males that produce boatwhistles with higher amplitude modulation, a feature that seems dependent on sonic muscle hypertrophy, could be more attractive to females.