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Title: Evolutionary and Allometric Insights into Anuran Auditory Sensitivity and Morphology
As species change through evolutionary time, the neurological and morphological structures that underlie behavioral systems typically remain coordinated. This is especially important for communication systems, in which these structures must remain coordinated both within and between senders and receivers for successful information transfer. The acoustic communication of anurans (“frogs”) offers an excellent system to ask when and how such coordination is maintained, and to allow researchers to dissociate allometric effects from independent correlated evolution. Anurans constitute one of the most speciose groups of vocalizing vertebrates, and females typically rely on vocalizations to localize males for reproduction. Here, we compile and compare data on various aspects of auditory morphology, hearing sensitivity, and call-dominant frequency across 81 species of anurans. We find robust, phylogenetically independent scaling effects of body size for all features measured. Furthermore, after accounting for body size, we find preliminary evidence that morphological evolution beyond allometry can correlate with hearing sensitivity and dominant frequency. These data provide foundational results regarding constraints imposed by body size on communication systems and motivate further data collection and analysis using comparative approaches across the numerous anuran species.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1914646
NSF-PAR ID:
10346710
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Brain, Behavior and Evolution
Volume:
97
Issue:
3-4
ISSN:
0006-8977
Page Range / eLocation ID:
140 to 150
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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