The first two functionally antagonistic call notes influence female choice in the Anhui tree frog

The present study used phonotaxis experiments to examine the effects of the notes on female choice in the Anhui tree frog (Rhacophorus zhoukaiyae). The stimulus pair consisted of the original male advertisement call (OC) and one of four revised versions, where the first (WN1), second (WN2), or fifth (WN5) notes were replaced by band-limited white noise (WN), and the second note was replaced by a period of silence (SN2), played back antiphonally. The results showed that (1) the females preferred OC compared with WN1, suggesting the first call note plays an important role in female choice, and (2) the females preferred WN2 and SN2 compared with OC. We discuss the possibility that the second note might be the result of the combined effects of physiological constraint and avoiding backward masking of the second note on the first one over evolutionary time. These results support the notion that the first two functionally antagonistic call notes may influence female choice in this species. The data is provided in Excel (.xlsx) format.

本研究采用趋声性（phonotaxis）实验，检验鸣声音节对安徽树蛙（Rhacophorus zhoukaiyae）雌性配偶选择的影响。本次实验的刺激对由原始雄性求偶鸣叫（OC）与四种修订版本中的任意一种构成，四类修订版本分别为：将第1（WN1）、第2（WN2）或第5（WN5）个音节替换为带限白噪音（WN），或将第2个音节替换为静音段（SN2），所有刺激对均以反相方式回放。研究结果显示：(1) 相较于WN1，雌性个体更偏好OC，表明首个鸣声音节在雌性配偶选择中发挥关键作用；(2) 相较于OC，雌性个体更偏好WN2与SN2。我们探讨了如下可能性：在演化历程中，第二个音节的形成可能是生理限制与规避第二个音节对首个音节产生后向掩蔽这两种效应共同作用的结果。本研究结果支持如下观点：该物种的前两个功能拮抗的鸣声音节可能会对雌性配偶选择产生影响。本研究相关数据以Excel（.xlsx）格式提供。