Data from: Home is where the high-quality resources are: nursery characteristics and territory distribution suggest reproductive resource defense in golden rocket frogs

For externally fertilizing animals, the early stages of development are
often the most precarious. In the face of multiple abiotic and biotic
stressors, parents must assess and select rearing sites that maximize the
probability of offspring survival. This is particularly true for
Neotropical poison frogs, many of which transport tadpoles to small pools
of water called phytotelmata that serve as larval-rearing sites. In these
systems, pool choice can have a large effect on offspring growth and
survival. Here, we studied the golden rocket frog (Anomaloglossus beebei,
Aromobatidae), a territorial phytotelm-breeding frog that lives
exclusively in giant tank bromeliads (Brocchinia micrantha), to examine
phytotelm selection and reproductive resource defense. We first quantified
the characteristics of phytotelmata and found that tadpoles were more
likely to occur in pools with low levels of mucilage and in leaves at
intermediate heights on the plant. We additionally found that low mucilage
pools have significantly clearer water, have higher concentrations of
dissolved oxygen, and are exposed to lower levels of photosynthetically
active radiation. We then mapped the spatial distribution of pools with
low levels of mucilage in relation to male territories and found that
these “clear” pools are (1) more likely to be within male territories than
outside of them, and (2) territory centroids are closer to clear pools
than are random locations. Overall, our results show that male golden
rocket frogs defend territories that include preferred tadpole deposition
sites, suggesting a direct relationship between high-quality reproductive
resources and territory defense.