Overlapping vocalizations produce far-reaching choruses: a test of the signal enhancement hypothesis

Abstract

Lay Summary For animals that breed in groups, individuals may produce overlapping sounds that enhance the signal transmission properties of the group’s chorus. We tested this hypothesis in Neotropical Yellow Toads. We show that transmission distance increases with the number of simultaneous toad calls. This effect is heightened when the calls are low in frequency (i.e., a chorus of large-bodied animals). Our findings represent the first experimental demonstration of chorus-level signal enhancement in vertebrates.