Temperature effect on the advertisement call of Pleurodema tucumanum (Anura: Leiuperidae)

Abstract

The advertisement call represents an important character to discriminatespecies, mainly between sibling species. The genus Pleurodema has cryptic species,therefore its acoustical characteristics could represent an useful tool to solve taxonomicproblems. It is expected that the advertisement call acoustic properties of the amphibiananurans will vary with the temperature because the frogs are ectotherms. We evaluated theeffect of temperature in the acoustic variables of the advertisement call of Pleurodematucumanum. The inter-call interval, number of pulses per call, inter-pulse interval andpulse rate showed covariation with temperature, whereas the call duration, pulse durationand dominant frequency were temperature-independent. The advertisement call of P.tucumanum corresponds to a single periodic pulse train. The call showed an averageduration of 289 ms, dominant frequency of 2552 Hz and 35 pulses of 2.38 ms at 22˚C. Thenumber of pulses increased with temperature. The discrimination of exogenous variabilityfrom the acoustic components allows one to analyze the intrinsic variability of theadvertisement calls.