Within-population variation in signal timing preferences and its implications for sexual selection on male displays

Abstract

Female mate choice decisions are guided by preferences for male display features, but in chorusing species the displays of different males may temporally overlap. Here, mate choice decisions may be guided by preferences based on signal timing in addition to signal features. Which type of preference dominates has implications for our understanding of the dynamics of sexual selection in group-displaying animals. I presented female treefrogs with a series of playback treatments varying the amounts of calls in leader/follower position to establish the lowest proportion of leading calls resulting in a preference. About half the females expressed leader preferences when fewer than 15% of calls are in leading position (the maximum produced by chorusing males). This suggests that mate choice decisions will be dominated by call timing preferences in some females, and by call features preferences others, overall lowering the strength of selection on either male display trait.