Temperature effect on the advertisement call of Pleurodema tucumanum (Anura: Leiuperidae).

Abstract

The advertisement call represents an important character to discriminate species, mainly between sibling species. The genus Pleurodema has cryptic species, therefore its acoustical characteristics could represent an useful tool to solve taxonomicproblems. It is expected that the advertisement call acoustic properties of the amphibian anurans will vary with the temperature because the frogs are ectotherms. We evaluated the effect of temperature in the acoustic variables of the advertisement call of Pleurodema tucumanum. The inter-call interval, number of pulses per call, inter-pulse interval and pulse rate showed covariation with temperature, whereas the call duration, pulse duration and dominant frequency were temperature-independent. The advertisement call of P.tucumanum corresponds to a single periodic pulse train. The call showed an average duration of 289 ms, dominant frequency of 2552 Hz and 35 pulses of 2.38 ms at 22˚C. The number of pulses increased with temperature. The discrimination of exogenous variabilityfrom the acoustic components allows one to analyze the intrinsic variability of the advertisement calls.

Keywords

• bioacoustic analysis
• linear regression model
• single periodic pulse train