Behavioural tuning in a tropical amphibian along an altitudinal gradient.

ABSTRACT: Males of the coqui treefrog, Eleutherodactylus coqui, produce a distinct two-note 'co-qui' advertisement call from sunset to midnight throughout most of the year. Previous work established that both the spectrotemporal aspects of the call and the frequency of highest inner-ear sensitivity change with altitude above sea level. These variations are such that the frequency of the emitted co-note closely matches the frequency to which the inner ear is most sensitive. Given this parallel variation, we expected that the call-evoked behavioural response of male coqui treefrogs would also show an altitude dependence, and hypothesized that males would produce their most robust acoustical territorial response to advertisement calls that match calls from their own altitude. We tested this hypothesis

SUBMITTER: Meenderink SWF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5746530 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature