Jansen, M., A. Masurowa & R. B. O’Hara:

Temporal variation, duty cycle, and absolute calling effort during sustained calling of Leptodactylus mystacinus (Anura: Leptodactylidae). pp. 328-336.

Abstract. We studied the within-night temporal call variation of Leptodactylus mystacinus using automated bioacoustic survey and pattern recognition techniques. Based on ca 50,000 detected calls we report on large-scale variation of dominant frequency, call duration, peak power, call interval, call period, and call rate. The “absolute” calling effort (as absolute seconds per hour spent on calling calculated as the sum of all detected calls during one hour) was between 165 and 716 s/hour (535 ± 191) with a peak at around 23:00 h, followed by a decrease until the end of the calling period. This might be due to vocal fatigue. In comparison with literature, the overall call production was higher than expected, but calling effort is comparable to estimates from the literature for other leptodactylid frogs. We hypothesize that species-specific mating tactics might be employed to achieve high calling effort during sustained calling. Further intra- and interspecific studies should aim at studying contest behaviour in mating frogs to test this hypothesis.

Key words. Amphibia, advertisement call, amplitude detection, automated bioacoustic survey, Bolivia, contest behaviour, sustained calling, overall call production.