The unexpected genetic mating system of the red‐backed toadlet (Pseudophryne coriacea): a species with prolonged terrestrial breeding and cryptic reproductive behaviour

Molecular technologies have revolutionised our classification of animal-mating systems, yet we still know very little about the genetic-mating systems of many vertebrate groups. It is widely believed that anuran amphibians have the highest reproductive diversity of all vertebrates, yet genetic mating systems have been studied in less than one percent of all described species. Here, we use SNPs to quantify the genetic-mating system of the terrestrial breeding red-backed toadlet Pseudophryne coriacea. In this species, breeding is prolonged (approximately 5 months), and males construct subterranean nests in which females deposit eggs. We predicted that females would display extreme sequential polyandry because this mating system has been reported in a closely-related species (P. bibronii). Parentage analysis revealed that mating success was heavily skewed towards a subset of males (30.6% of potential sires), and that nearly all females (92.6%) mated with one male. In a high percentage of o...