Data for: "Adoption of alternative satellite mating tactics by small male green treefrogs, Dryophytes cinereus, is not associated with age"

Abstract: "Anuran amphibians are model organisms for studying alternative mating tactics, but there are large gaps in knowledge regarding how alternative tactics arise and are maintained in this taxonomic group. Male anurans adopting a non-calling ‘satellite’ mating tactic are typically assumed to represent a class of younger, competitively inferior, individuals based on their small size. Hence, satellite behavior is potentially maintained in natural populations by periodic recruitment of cohorts of young individuals. However, few studies have examined whether body size differences in satellites and associated calling males accurately reflect age in this taxonomic group. In some animals, body size discrepancies among males practicing different mating tactics are not a consequence of age but instead represent classes of individuals with disparate growth trajectories. Here we used skeletochronological analysis combined with body size measures to examine these alternative scenarios in the green treefrog, <i>Dryophytes cinereus</i>. Consistent with previous studies, we show that males adopting satellite behavior in natural choruses are smaller and in poorer condition than calling males. However, skeletochronology revealed that smaller satellite males do not represent a class of younger individuals indicating that small males with a high propensity for satellite behavior have lower growth rates than calling males. Additional work is needed to ascertain whether size discrepancies in behavioral phenotypes are due to variation in environmental conditions during ontogeny or are attributable to genetic polymorphisms. We discuss the importance of size differences between behavioral phenotypes in the context of endocrine mediation of tactic expression and sexual selection in this species."