Abstract
Species recognition, encompassing mate and competitor recognition, is an important mechanism for establishing and maintaining species boundaries. The effective communication between a sender and a receiver is crucial for species recognition to occur. In this sense, intraspecific signals are expected to evolve coupled to recognition systems to avoid reproductive interference with other species. Empirical evidence suggests, however, that the asymmetrical evolution of signaling and recognition systems may be widespread in nature. Moreover, the study of recognition systems has classically focused on the perception by females, but the role of males has been largely overlooked. We studied the divergence of acoustic traits and their perception in two nominal species and an intermediate population that form a phenotypic cline in color and body size. We used males’ recognition of and competition with other males as the predicted drivers of the communication system. We found wide and asymmetrical levels of recognition in both species and the intermediate population, which we argue reflects the prevalence of reproductive interference across the system.
Significance statement
The effective recognition of aggressive signals between males of incipient lineages is expected to prevent costly interactions, such as competing for mates. Therefore, diverging signals should evolve coupled to perceptual systems that allow their recognition. When this process is broken, reproductive interference or the competition between males of distinct lineages for the access to mates will prevail. In our study, we prove that the coupled divergence of acoustic signals and their perception is hindered in incipient lineages of territorial poison frogs (Phyllobates). We studied two species and an intermediate population that represent a phenotypic cline in color and body size. Territoriality in poison frogs is widely acknowledged as a predictor of reproductive success in males. Therefore, we argue that males’ auditory perception remained flexible to recognize divergent acoustic traits that could put at risk males’ territory ownership and by extension mate acquisition.
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Data availability
All data used for our study is included in the supplementary material document. This Data set can be found at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/366124036_Gonzalez-Santoro_et_al_2022_Data_Set
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Acknowledgements
We are highly thankful with Corinne Richards-Zawacki, the RZ lab and Tessa Rhinehart for helpful comments that improved the manuscript. We thank Laura Lopera-Congote for her guidance and suggestions on figure editing and the construction of the map. We thank the two reviewers and the editor that guided us to improve our manuscript. Finally, we are especially grateful with La Victoria community and Blas in Santa Cecilia for their hospitality and knowledge shared about the natural history of poison frogs.
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This work was supported by Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de los Andes-Colombia (Seed Grant to MGS).
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Conceptualization: MG-S, PP-R, AA. Methodology: all authors and coauthors contributed to the methodology. Formal analysis and investigation: MG-S, AA. Writing-original draft preparation: MG-S, AA. Writing-review and editing: MG-S, MG, AA. Funding acquisition: MG-S, AA.
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All authors confirm that the welfare of animals was prioritized and respected in the study. We followed the recommended guidelines for fieldwork with animals set forth by the Animal Behavior Society. No ethics committee approval was required as all experiments were observational. Individuals were only temporarily caught to measure the body size and immediately released. Neither the experiments nor the handling harmed any individual.
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González-Santoro, M., Palacios-Rodríguez, P., Gonzalez, M. et al. Decoupled auditory perception from acoustic signal divergence hinders species recognition in territorial poison frogs. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 77, 8 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-022-03281-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-022-03281-8