Effects of Body Size and Environmental Factors on the Acoustic Structure and Temporal Rhythm of Calls in Rhacophorus dennysi

Abstract

In anurans, the outcomes of male-male contests and female choice are often associated with body size. In some species, males evaluate an opponent's fighting ability and females evaluate male quality on the basis of male communication signals, which are thought to reflect information concerning male body size. Nevertheless, previous studies reveal that male call structure is not always correlated with body size. In the present study we investigated the relationships between body size and call structure in the large treefrog, Rhacophorus dennysi, as well as the relationship of its calling behavior with air temperature and humidity. The results show that both the dominant and fundamental frequencies are negatively correlated with body size, while inter-note intervals are positively correlated with body size, indicating that call characters could reflect body size in this species. Additionally, calling in this tropical species exhibits a circadian rhythm insofar as relatively high temperature and low humidity during the day is associated with less vocal behavior. Thus, individual variations in call structure are mainly dependent on body size while the temporal rhythm of calling activity is affected by environmental conditions in large treefrogs.