Dataset Information

The acoustic repertoire of the Atlantic Forest Rocket Frog and its consequences for taxonomy and conservation (Allobates, Aromobatidae).

ABSTRACT: The use of acoustic signals is a common characteristic of most anuran species to mediate intraspecific communication. Besides many social purposes, one of the main functions of these signals is species recognition. For this reason, this phenotypic trait is normally applied to taxonomy or to construct evolutionary relationship hypotheses. Here the acoustic repertoire of five populations of the genus Allobates from the Brazilian Atlantic Forest are presented for the first time, on a vulnerable to extinction Neotropical taxon. The description of males' advertisement and aggressive calls and a female call emitted in a courtship context are presented. In addition, the advertisement calls of individuals from distinct geographical regions were compared. Differences in frequency range and note duration may imply in taxonomic rearrangements of these populations, once considered distinct species, and more recently, proposed as a single species, Allobates olfersioides. Calls of the male from the state of Rio de Janeiro do not overlap spectrally with calls of males from northern populations, while the shorter notes emitted by males from Alagoas also distinguishes this population from the remaining southern populations. Therefore, it is likely that at least two of the junior synonyms should be revalidated. Similarities among male advertisement and female calls are generally reported in other anuran species; these calls may have evolved from a preexisting vocalization common to both sexes. Male aggressive calls were different from both the male advertisement and female calls, since it was composed by a longer and multi-pulsed note. Aggressive and advertisement calls generally have similar dominant frequencies, but they have temporal distinctions. Such patterns were corroborated with the Atlantic Forest Rocket Frogs. These findings may support future research addressing the taxonomy of the group, behavioral evolution, and amphibian conservation.

SUBMITTER: Forti LR

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5672738 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

The acoustic repertoire of the Atlantic Forest Rocket Frog and its consequences for taxonomy and conservation (<i>Allobates</i>, Aromobatidae).

Forti Lucas Rodriguez LR da Silva Thaís Renata Ávila TRÁ Toledo Luís Felipe LF

ZooKeys 20170821 692

The use of acoustic signals is a common characteristic of most anuran species to mediate intraspecific communication. Besides many social purposes, one of the main functions of these signals is species recognition. For this reason, this phenotypic trait is normally applied to taxonomy or to construct evolutionary relationship hypotheses. Here the acoustic repertoire of five populations of the genus <i>Allobates</i> from the Brazilian Atlantic Forest are presented for the first time, on a vulnera ...[more]

PMID: 29133990

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Project description:Anurans are a highly diverse group in the Atlantic Forest hotspot (AF), yet distribution patterns and species richness gradients are not randomly distributed throughout the biome. Thus, we explore how anuran species are distributed in this complex and biodiverse hotspot, and hypothesize that this group can be distinguished by different cohesive regions. We used range maps of 497 species to obtain a presence/absence data grid, resolved to 50×50 km grain size, which was submitted to k-means clustering with v-fold cross-validation to determine the biogeographic regions. We also explored the extent to which current environmental variables, topography, and floristic structure of the AF are expected to identify the cluster patterns recognized by the k-means clustering. The biogeographic patterns found for amphibians are broadly congruent with ecoregions identified in the AF, but their edges, and sometimes the whole extent of some clusters, present much less resolved pattern compared to previous classification. We also identified that climate, topography, and vegetation structure of the AF explained a high percentage of variance of the cluster patterns identified, but the magnitude of the regression coefficients shifted regarding their importance in explaining the variance for each cluster. Specifically, we propose that the anuran fauna of the AF can be split into four biogeographic regions: a) less diverse and widely-ranged species that predominantly occur in the inland semideciduous forests; b) northern small-ranged species that presumably evolved within the Pleistocene forest refugia; c) highly diverse and small-ranged species from the southeastern Brazilian mountain chain and its adjacent semideciduous forest; and d) southern species from the Araucaria forest. Finally, the high congruence among the cluster patterns and previous eco-regions identified for the AF suggests that preserving the underlying habitat structure helps to preserve the historical and ecological signals that underlie the geographic distribution of AF anurans.

Project description:Understanding the response of species with differing life-history traits to habitat edges and habitat conversion helps predict their likelihood of persistence across changing landscape. In Brazil's Atlantic Forest, we evaluated frog richness and abundance by breeding guild at four distances from the edge of a reserve: i) 200 m inside the forest, ii) 50 m inside the forest, iii) at the forest edge, and iv) 50 m inside three different converted habitats (coffee plantation, non-native Eucalyptus plantation, and abandoned pastures, hereafter matrix types). By sampling a dry and a wet season, we recorded 622 individual frogs representing 29 species, of which three were undescribed. Breeding guild (i.e. bromeliad, leaf-litter, and water-body breeders) was the most important variable explaining frog distributions in relation to edge effects and matrix types. Leaf-litter and bromeliad breeders decreased in richness and abundance from the forest interior toward the matrix habitats. Water-body breeders increased in richness toward the matrix and remained relatively stable in abundance across distances. Number of large trees (i.e. DBH > 15 cm) and bromeliads best explained frog richness and abundance across distances. Twenty species found in the interior of the forest were not found in any matrix habitat. Richness and abundance across breeding guilds were higher in the rainy season but frog distributions were similar across the four distances in the two seasons. Across matrix types, leaf-litter species primarily used Eucalyptus plantations, whereas water-body species primarily used coffee plantations. Bromeliad breeders were not found inside any matrix habitat. Our study highlights the importance of primary forest for bromeliad and leaf-litter breeders. We propose that water-body breeders use edge and matrix habitats to reach breeding habitats along the valleys. Including life-history characteristics, such as breeding guild, can improve predictions of frog distributions in response to edge effect and matrix types, and can guide more effective management and conservation actions.

Dataset Information

The acoustic repertoire of the Atlantic Forest Rocket Frog and its consequences for taxonomy and conservation (Allobates, Aromobatidae).

Publications

The acoustic repertoire of the Atlantic Forest Rocket Frog and its consequences for taxonomy and conservation (<i>Allobates</i>, Aromobatidae).

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