Silence is sexy: Soundscape complexity alters mate choice in túngara frogs

Many animals acoustically communicate in large aggregations, producing biotic soundscapes. In turn, these natural soundscapes can influence the efficacy of animal communication, yet little is known about how variation in soundscape interferes with animals that communicate acoustically. We quantified this variation by analyzing natural soundscapes with the mid-frequency cover index and by measuring the frequency ranges and call rates of the most common acoustically communicating species. We then tested female mate choice in the túngara frog (Physalaemus pustulosus) in varying types of background chorus noise. We broadcast two natural túngara frog calls as a stimulus and altered the densities (duty cycles) of natural calls from conspecifics and heterospecifics to form the different types of chorus noise. During both conspecific and heterospecific chorus noise treatments, females demonstrated similar preferences for advertisement calls at low and mid noise densities but failed to express a preference in the presence of high noise density. Our data also suggest that nights with high densities of chorus noise from conspecifics and heterospecifics are common in some breeding ponds, and on nights with high noise density, the soundscape plays an important role diminishing the accuracy of female decision-making.

诸多动物会在大规模集群时通过声学方式进行交流，由此形成生物声景（biotic soundscapes）。反过来，这些自然声景会影响动物交流的效能，但目前学界对声景变化如何干扰声学交流动物的机制仍知之甚少。我们通过中频覆盖指数（mid-frequency cover index）分析自然声景，并测量最常见声学交流物种的频率范围与鸣叫率，以此量化声景的变化程度。随后，我们针对通古拉泡蟾（túngara frog，Physalaemus pustulosus）在不同类型背景合唱噪声环境下的雌性配偶选择行为开展了实验：以两组自然通古拉泡蟾鸣叫作为刺激信号，并通过调整同种（conspecifics）与异种（heterospecifics）个体自然鸣叫的密度（即占空比，duty cycles）来构建不同类型的合唱噪声背景。在同种与异种合唱噪声处理组中，雌性个体在低、中等噪声密度下均表现出对求偶鸣叫（advertisement calls）的相似偏好，但在高噪声密度环境下则无法表现出明确的偏好。我们的数据还表明，在部分繁殖池塘中，同种与异种合唱噪声密度较高的夜晚较为常见；而在噪声密度较高的夜晚，声景会显著降低雌性配偶选择决策的准确性。

搜集汇总

背景与挑战

背景概述

该数据集研究了自然环境声景（包括同种和异种合唱噪声）对通格蛙择偶行为的影响，通过分析声景变化和雌蛙在噪声下的反应，发现高噪声密度会削弱雌蛙的择偶偏好准确性。数据集包含相关实验数据文件，但声音和视频文件需单独索取。