LYNCH, K.*; RAND, A.S.; RYAN, M.; WILCZYNSKI, W.; Univ. of Texas at Austin and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute: The Interaction Between Motivation to Mate and Permissiveness in Female Mate Choice

Female mate choice is comprised of multiple aspects, such as motivation to mate, recognition of mate signals and discrimination between multiple mate signals. In addition, when an individual female recognizes, and therefore attends to, a mate signal that is known to be less attractive than her preferred signal, this can be thought of as female permissiveness. Two aspects of mate choice, motivation to mate and permissiveness, may be associated so that one influences the expression of the other. For instance, a female may not express mate choice toward a less attractive male mate signal until some threshold in her motivation to mate is achieved. We examined the relationship between motivation to mate and female permissiveness in the t�ngara frog (Physalaemus pustulosus) using phonotaxis tests. We assessed a female’s motivation to mate by measuring the female’s latency to respond to conspecific mate signals. In order to understand potential factors that may influence motivation, we also examined whether female motivation, as measured by response latency, increases as the female approached the time of ovipositioning. Our results suggest that the latency to respond to conspecific mate signals is much shorter in females that also respond to a less attractive mate signal (x=161sec) as compared to females that do not respond to a less attractive mate signal (x=521sec;P=0.001). Furthermore, females that oviposit in less than the median time respond to conspecific advertisement calls in significantly less time than females that require more time to oviposit (x=114.3;x=533.8;P<0.005). These data suggest that motivation to mate can influence whether females express permissive mate choices and that in turn, motivation is influenced by time to oviposition.