Wong Stefanie, Parada Humberto, Narins Peter M
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, U.S.A.
Biotropica. 2009 Jan 1;41(1):74-80. doi: 10.1111/j.1744-7429.2008.00452.x.
Call rate suppression is a common short-term solution for avoiding acoustic interference in animals. It has been widely documented between and within frog species, but the effects of non-anuran calling on frog vocalizations is less well known. Heterospecific acoustic interference on the calling of Oophaga pumilio (Bauer, 1994) (formerly Dendrobates pumilio) males was studied in a lowland, wet tropical forest in SE Nicaragua. Acoustic playback experiments were conducted to characterize the responses of O. pumilio males to interfering calls of cicadas, two species of crickets and a sympatric dendrobatid frog, Phyllobates lugubris. Call rate, call bout duration, percent of time calling, dominant frequency and latency to first-call were analyzed. Significant call rate suppression was observed during all stimulus playbacks, yet no significant differences were found in spontaneous call rates during pre- and post-playback trials. Dominant frequency significantly decreased after P. lugubris playback and first-call latency significantly decreased in response to both cicada and tree cricket playbacks. These results provide robust evidence that O. pumilio males can dynamically modify their calling pattern in unique ways, depending on the source of the heterospecific acoustic interference.
叫声抑制是动物避免声学干扰的一种常见短期解决方案。这种现象在蛙类物种之间和物种内部已有广泛记载，但非蛙类叫声对蛙类发声的影响却鲜为人知。在尼加拉瓜东南部的低地潮湿热带森林中，研究了异种声学干扰对草莓箭毒蛙（鲍尔，1994年）（原称绿丛蛙）雄性叫声的影响。进行了声学回放实验，以表征草莓箭毒蛙雄性对蝉、两种蟋蟀以及同域分布的箭毒蛙——悲哀叶毒蛙的干扰叫声的反应。分析了叫声频率、鸣叫持续时间、鸣叫时间百分比、主频以及首次鸣叫潜伏期。在所有刺激回放期间均观察到显著的叫声频率抑制，但在回放前和回放后的试验中，自发叫声频率未发现显著差异。悲哀叶毒蛙回放后主频显著降低，对蝉和树蟋回放的反应是首次鸣叫潜伏期显著缩短。这些结果提供了有力证据，表明草莓箭毒蛙雄性可以根据异种声学干扰的来源，以独特的方式动态改变其鸣叫模式。
