Phonotaxis to male’s calls embedded within a chorus by female gray treefrogs, Hyla versicolor
During the reproductive season, male Hyla versicolor produce advertisement calls to attract females. Females exhibit phonotaxis and approach the individual callers, resulting in amplexus. For frogs that call from dense choruses, the extent to which and the range from which a male’s advertisement call within a chorus can be heard by a receptive female leading to phonotaxis is unclear. We investigated females’ responses to natural choruses in the field and found that they were attracted and showed directed orientation to breeding choruses at distances up to 100 m. To assess the role of acoustic cues in the directed orientation, we conducted acoustic playback experiments in the laboratory using conspecific call and noise as stimuli, as well as chorus sounds (that contained calls from a focal male) recorded at various distances, all played at naturalistic intensities. Using two response metrics (females’ normalized response times and their phonotaxis trajectories) we found that, unlike the field experiments, females oriented and were attracted to chorus sounds from 1 to 32 m only, but not from >32 m, or to band-limited noise. Possible reasons for the observed difference in phonotaxis behavior in the two experimental conditions were discussed.