Environmental and morphological constraints interact to drive the evolution of communication signals in frogs

Animals show a rich diversity of signals and displays. Among the many selective forces driving the evolution of communication signals, one widely recognized factor is the structure of the environment where animals communicate. In particular, animals communicating by sounds often emit acoustic signal...

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Autores principales: Muñoz, Matías I., Goutte, Sandra, Ellers, Jacintha, Halfwerk, Wouter
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7756787/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33047401
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jeb.13713
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author Muñoz, Matías I.
Goutte, Sandra
Ellers, Jacintha
Halfwerk, Wouter
author_facet Muñoz, Matías I.
Goutte, Sandra
Ellers, Jacintha
Halfwerk, Wouter
author_sort Muñoz, Matías I.
collection PubMed
description Animals show a rich diversity of signals and displays. Among the many selective forces driving the evolution of communication signals, one widely recognized factor is the structure of the environment where animals communicate. In particular, animals communicating by sounds often emit acoustic signals from specific locations, such as high up in the air, from the ground or in the water. The properties of these different display sites may impose different constraints on sound production, and therefore drive signal evolution. Here, we used comparative phylogenetic analyses to assess the relationship between calling site (aquatic versus nonaquatic), body size and call dominant frequency of 160 frog species from the families Ranidae, Leptodactylidae and Hylidae. We found that the frequency of frogs calling from the water was lower than that of species calling outside of the water, a trend that was consistent across the three families studied. Furthermore, phylogenetic path analysis revealed that call site had both direct and indirect effects on call frequency. Indirect effects were mediated by call site influencing male body size, which in turn was negatively associated with call frequency. Our results suggest that properties of display sites can drive signal evolution, most likely not only through morphological constraints imposed on the sound production mechanism, but also through changes in body size, highlighting the relevance of the interplay between morphological adaptation and signal evolution. Changes in display site may therefore have important evolutionary consequences, as it may influence sexual selection processes and ultimately may even promote speciation.
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spelling pubmed-77567872020-12-28 Environmental and morphological constraints interact to drive the evolution of communication signals in frogs Muñoz, Matías I. Goutte, Sandra Ellers, Jacintha Halfwerk, Wouter J Evol Biol Research Papers Animals show a rich diversity of signals and displays. Among the many selective forces driving the evolution of communication signals, one widely recognized factor is the structure of the environment where animals communicate. In particular, animals communicating by sounds often emit acoustic signals from specific locations, such as high up in the air, from the ground or in the water. The properties of these different display sites may impose different constraints on sound production, and therefore drive signal evolution. Here, we used comparative phylogenetic analyses to assess the relationship between calling site (aquatic versus nonaquatic), body size and call dominant frequency of 160 frog species from the families Ranidae, Leptodactylidae and Hylidae. We found that the frequency of frogs calling from the water was lower than that of species calling outside of the water, a trend that was consistent across the three families studied. Furthermore, phylogenetic path analysis revealed that call site had both direct and indirect effects on call frequency. Indirect effects were mediated by call site influencing male body size, which in turn was negatively associated with call frequency. Our results suggest that properties of display sites can drive signal evolution, most likely not only through morphological constraints imposed on the sound production mechanism, but also through changes in body size, highlighting the relevance of the interplay between morphological adaptation and signal evolution. Changes in display site may therefore have important evolutionary consequences, as it may influence sexual selection processes and ultimately may even promote speciation. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2020-10-18 2020-12 /pmc/articles/PMC7756787/ /pubmed/33047401 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jeb.13713 Text en © 2020 The Authors. Journal of Evolutionary Biology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Society for Evolutionary Biology This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Papers
Muñoz, Matías I.
Goutte, Sandra
Ellers, Jacintha
Halfwerk, Wouter
Environmental and morphological constraints interact to drive the evolution of communication signals in frogs
title Environmental and morphological constraints interact to drive the evolution of communication signals in frogs
title_full Environmental and morphological constraints interact to drive the evolution of communication signals in frogs
title_fullStr Environmental and morphological constraints interact to drive the evolution of communication signals in frogs
title_full_unstemmed Environmental and morphological constraints interact to drive the evolution of communication signals in frogs
title_short Environmental and morphological constraints interact to drive the evolution of communication signals in frogs
title_sort environmental and morphological constraints interact to drive the evolution of communication signals in frogs
topic Research Papers
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7756787/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33047401
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jeb.13713
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