TY - JOUR
T1 - Ueno’s brown frog Rana uenoi indiscriminately ceases calling in the presence of daytime birds
AU - Kim, Kyungmin
AU - Macias, Daniel
AU - Borzée, Amaël
AU - Jang, Yikweon
N1 - Funding Information:
This project was funded by the [grant 2017R1A2B2003579] from the National Research Foundation of Korea and by the [grant PJ012285] from the Rural Development Administration to Y. Jang.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, © 2020 Dipartimento di Biologia, Università di Firenze, Italia.
PY - 2020/5/3
Y1 - 2020/5/3
N2 - Animals need to recognise predators to assess threats and adjust their behaviour accordingly. Acoustic cues produced to attract mates may also be intercepted by predators, and signallers can use both visual and acoustic cues to detect predators and initiate escape or defensive behaviours. Here, to test whether Ueno’s brown frogs (Rana uenoi) advertising during daytime are able to visually and aurally recognize predatory birds, we monitored calling activity at 27 active breeding sites where birds were also known to occur. Based on visual and aural observations, frogs were significantly less likely to be calling when birds were present than when absent. However, we failed to determine whether male R. uenoi distinguished among predator and non-predator species, responding to the presence of all bird species with cessation of calling. While daytime calling activity decreased in the presence of birds, the maximum egg clutch count per site used as a proxy for reproductive output was unaffected by daytime presence of birds. Our results suggest that R. uenoi uses visual cues to detect disturbances, but that its ability to visually assess the risks posed by individual species is minimal.
AB - Animals need to recognise predators to assess threats and adjust their behaviour accordingly. Acoustic cues produced to attract mates may also be intercepted by predators, and signallers can use both visual and acoustic cues to detect predators and initiate escape or defensive behaviours. Here, to test whether Ueno’s brown frogs (Rana uenoi) advertising during daytime are able to visually and aurally recognize predatory birds, we monitored calling activity at 27 active breeding sites where birds were also known to occur. Based on visual and aural observations, frogs were significantly less likely to be calling when birds were present than when absent. However, we failed to determine whether male R. uenoi distinguished among predator and non-predator species, responding to the presence of all bird species with cessation of calling. While daytime calling activity decreased in the presence of birds, the maximum egg clutch count per site used as a proxy for reproductive output was unaffected by daytime presence of birds. Our results suggest that R. uenoi uses visual cues to detect disturbances, but that its ability to visually assess the risks posed by individual species is minimal.
KW - Anura
KW - behavioural response
KW - daytime calling activity
KW - predation pressure
KW - predatory birds
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85078847582&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/03949370.2020.1717638
DO - 10.1080/03949370.2020.1717638
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85078847582
SN - 0394-9370
VL - 32
SP - 251
EP - 263
JO - Ethology Ecology and Evolution
JF - Ethology Ecology and Evolution
IS - 3
ER -