Advertisement Call Duration of Hylidae (Tree Frog) Species

Advertisement calls are species-specific acoustic signals used by frogs (anurans) to advertise their position to others (Hepp, Lourenço and Pombal, 2017; Kaya and Simmons, 1999). These calls are predominantly used as a mating function as they allow for species-species recognition (Hepp, Lourenço and Pombal, 2017). Advertisement calls can play an important role in species diagnosis, as variability in their structure can be an indicator of species-level evolutionary relationships and taxonomic status (Bang and Giaretta, 2017; Blair, 1958; Kaya and Simmons, 1999). The importance of advertisement calls therefore led to the exploration of differences in the call duration within the Hylidae (tree frog) species to create this database. This database was made with the aim of providing contributions to help better understand their interspecific variation.

To make the database, data on 30 species of Hylidae (Tree Frogs) was extracted and compiled from studies in literature papers relevant to the trait. Literature search took place on the 5th and 6th of February 2024 using Google Scholar. The search terms “Hylidae vocalization” and “Advertisement call duration of Hylidae” were used to find papers on the trait of advertisement calls of Hylidae. These studies provided data on the trait values; mean, minimum and maximum advertisement call duration for different species of Hylidae. The trait unit milliseconds (ms) were used in the database for these trait values, and papers which gave these values in seconds (s) were converted to the same units. The time of day and settings of these studies, when available, were collected for the database. Time of day regards whether the trait data was collected in the day- or night-time, and study setting was whether the data was collected in the field or in a lab setting. The longitude and latitude of the study locations are also included in the database, and these were converted from degrees, minutes, seconds into decimal degrees. For studies which did not include specific geographic coordinates, an estimated longitude and latitude were used based on the most specific location of data collection mentioned in the studies. A further column provides details of whether these longitude and latitudes are ‘True’ or an ‘Estimate’.

References

Bang, D.L. and Giaretta, A.A., 2017. A reassessment of the vocalizations of three species of Ololygon (Anura: Hylidae) from southeastern Brazil. Phyllomedusa: Journal of Herpetology, 16(1), 23-45. https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2316-9079.v16i1p23-47.

Blair, W.F., 1958. ‘Call Structure and Species Groups in U. S. Treefrogs (Hyla)’, The Southwestern Naturalist, 3(1/4), pp. 77–89. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/3669039.

Hepp, F., Lourenço, A.C.C. and Pombal, J.P., 2017. Bioacoustics of  four Scinax species  and  a  review  of acoustic  traits  in  the Scinax  catharinae species  group (Amphibia: Anura: Hylidae). Salamandra53:212–230.

Kaya, U. and Simmons, A.M., 1999. ‘Advertisement Calls of the Tree Frogs, Hyla Arborea and Hyla Savignyi (anura: Hylidae) in Turkey’, Bioacoustics, 10(2–3), pp. 175–190. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/09524622.1999.9753429.