Female mate choice and the potential for ornament evolution in túngara frogs Physalaemus pustulosus  

作　　者：Michael J.RYAN Ximena E.BERNAL A.Stanley RAND 

机构地区：[1]Section of Integrative Biology C0930,University of Texas [2]Smithsonian Tropical Research Institution [3]Department of Biological Science,Texas Tech University [4]Srnithsonian Tropical Research Institution

出　　处：《Current Zoology》2010年第3期343-357,共15页动物学报（英文版）

基　　金：funded by several grants from both the National Science Foundation;the Smithsonian Scholarly Studies Program

摘　　要：The potential for ornament evolution in response to sexual selection rests on the interaction between the permissive- ness or selectivity of female preferences and the constraints on male development of signaling related traits. We investigate the former by determining how latent female preferences either exaggerate the magnitude of current traits （i.e. elaborations） or favor novel traits （i.e. innovations）. In tt^ngara frogs, females prefer complex mating calls （whine-chucks） to simple calls （whine only）. The whine is critical for mate recognition while the chuck further enhances the attractiveness of the call. Here we use a combina- tion of synthetic and natural stimuli to examine latent female preferences. Our results show that a diversity of stimuli, including conspecific and heterospecific calls as well as predator-produced and human-made sounds, increase the attractiveness of a call when added to a whine. These stimuli do not make simple calls more attractive than a whine-chuck, however. In rare cases we found stimuli that added to the whine decrease the attractiveness of the call. Overall, females show strong preferences for both elaborations and innovations of the chuck. We argue that the emancipation of these acoustic adornments from mate recognition allows such female permissiveness, and that male constraints on signal evolution are probably more important in explaining why males evolved their specific adornment. Experimentally probing latent female preferences for stimuli out of the species＇ range is a useful means to gain insights about the potential of female choice to influence signal evolution and thus the astounding diversity in male sexually-selected traits [Current Zoology 56 （3）： 343-357, 2010].

关 键 词：Mate choice Ornament evolution Tfingara frogs Physalaemus pustulosus 

分 类 号：Q958[生物学—动物学]