Meeting Abstract
In a variety of animal taxa, females often show preferences based on the relative timing of sexual advertisement signals produced by different males. Such preferences may be important selective forces on communication systems, leading to phenomenon such as synchronous displays or avoidance of overlap. We examined the preferences of female gray treefrogs, Hyla versicolor and H. chrysoscelis, for calls broadcast with different timing relationships by systematically modifying the interval between the onset of calls. At the longest intervals (900 and 1300 ms), calls did not overlap but exhibited a distinctive leader-follower timing relationship. At the shorter delays (25 and 250 ms), calls overlapped in time. In general, females of both species preferred the leading call. However, there were differences between the species as a function of call delay. Females of H. chrysoscelis maintained a preference for leaders over a greater range of delays than H. versicolor. However, at the very shortest delays (25 ms), females of H. chrysoscelis appeared unable to localize either sound source while females of H. versicolor exhibited strong preferences for leading calls. We discuss the species differences in the context of species-specific call structures and the possible action of the precedence effect.
