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Biological Constraints on Anuran Acoustic Communication: Auditory Capabilities of Naturally Behaving Animals

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The Evolutionary Biology of Hearing

Abstract

As vertebrate animals first adjusted to terrestrial life, strong selection pressure was exerted to develop acoustic communication signals which were at once well-suited for the exchange of biologically significant information between conspecifics, inconspicuous to or poorly localizable by predators, and robust in the face of high-level background noise. In this chapter I attempt to review the literature concerning comparative field studies of hearing in anuran amphibians (frogs and toads) using psychophysical paradigms. I am interested in what we may learn from such investigations and how such studies relate to the standard psycho-acoustical experiments carried out in laboratories worldwide. I chose to focus on anuran amphibians as a model taxon for several reasons: these animals are often highly vocal; sounds are known to play a critical role in their courtship and reproductive behavior; their vocal repertoire consists of a small number of species-specific, stereotyped sounds; and these sounds, although often complex, may be readily synthesized and used as stimuli in playback experiments in the field.

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Authors
  1. Peter M. Narins
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Louisiana State University Medical Center, New Orleans, LA, 70112, USA

    Douglas B. Webster

  2. Department of Zoology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742, USA

    Arthur N. Popper

  3. Parmly Hearing Institute and Loyola University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 60626, USA

    Richard R. Fay

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© 1992 Springer-Verlag New York Inc.

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Narins, P.M. (1992). Biological Constraints on Anuran Acoustic Communication: Auditory Capabilities of Naturally Behaving Animals. In: Webster, D.B., Popper, A.N., Fay, R.R. (eds) The Evolutionary Biology of Hearing. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-2784-7_26

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-2784-7_26

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-7668-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4612-2784-7

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