Tungara frog memory - behavioral data 2021-2022

Across many taxa, males gather in leks to perform multisensory courtship displays for females. At a lek, changes in the sensory scene over the course of mate evaluation are inevitable. This dynamic nature makes a female’s ability to recall the location of individual signalers an important component of female mate choice. It is hypothesized that complex (especially multimodal) displays may improve a female’s ability to remember and, thus, discriminate amongst potential mates. To test this hypothesis, we presented female túngara frogs (Physalaemus (=Engystomops) pustulosus) with male calls (auditory) and robotic frogs (visual) that could later be obstructed from view via the lowering of blinds. Specifically, we asked if the visual component of a multimodal display improves the ability of a receiver to remember a signaler. Memory capability was examined after an initial presentation period and either a silent period, holding period, or both. Females were able to remember the location of the visual cue, but interestingly, only demonstrated significant preferences for that location after experiencing a period of silence. Their memory persisted even after a combined 25 s following the obstruction of the visual stimulus (robotic frog). Silence is common in choruses, and our data suggest that memory instantiation for multisensory stimuli occurs as a result of this silence. Here, we release the data that were collected from these trials in 2021 and 2022.Speakers played male whine-chuck calls and served as the auditory stimulus. Robotic frogs served as an additional visual stimulus. Pairs were collected in amplexus at various sites around Gamboa, Panama and were ID’d (“Frog #”) so that they could be returned to their original site.