Using citizen science to test for acoustic niche partitioning in frogs.

ABSTRACT: The acoustic niche hypothesis proposes that to avoid interference with breeding signals, vocal species should evolve to partition acoustic space, minimising similarity with co-occurring signals. Tests of the acoustic niche hypothesis are typically conducted using a single assemblage, with mixed outcomes, but if the process is evolutionarily important, a pattern of reduced acoustic competition should emerge, on average, over many communities. Using a continental-scale dataset derived from audio recordings collected by citizen scientists, we show that frogs do partition acoustic space. Differences in calls were predominately caused by differences in spectral, rather than temporal, features. Specifically, the 90% frequency bandwidths of observed frog assemblages overlapped less than expected,

SUBMITTER: Allen-Ankins S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8844063 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature