title: Environmental constraints and call evolution in torrent-dwelling frogs.
abstract: Although acoustic signals are important for communication in many taxa, signal propagation is affected by environmental properties. Strong environmental constraints should drive call evolution, favoring signals with greater transmission distance and content integrity in a given calling habitat. Yet, few empirical studies have verified this prediction, possibly due to a shortcoming in habitat characterization, which is often too broad. Here we assess the potential impact of environmental constraints on the evolution of advertisement call in four groups of torrent-dwelling frogs in the family Ranidae. We reconstruct the evolution of calling site preferences, both broadly categorized and at a finer scale, onto a phylogenetic tree for 148 species with five markers (∼3600 bp). We test models of evolution for six call traits for 79 species with regard to the reconstructed history of calling site preferences and estimate their ancestral states. We find that in spite of existing morphological constraints, vocalizations of torrent-dwelling species are most probably constrained by the acoustic specificities of torrent habitats and particularly their high level of ambient noise. We also show that a fine-scale characterization of calling sites allows a better perception of the impact of environmental constraints on call evolution.
authors.affiliation: Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Institut de Systématique, Evolution, Biodiversité, ISYEB - UMR 7205 CNRS MNHN UPMC EPHE, Sorbonne Universités, 57 rue Cuvier, 75231, Paris Cedex 05, France. s.m.goutte@gmail.com.|Laboratório de História Natural de Anfíbios Brasileiros, Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, rua Monteiro Lobato, 255, CEP 13083-862, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil. s.m.goutte@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Sandra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Goutte
authors.affiliation: Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Institut de Systématique, Evolution, Biodiversité, ISYEB - UMR 7205 CNRS MNHN UPMC EPHE, Sorbonne Universités, 57 rue Cuvier, 75231, Paris Cedex 05, France.
authors.forename: Alain
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dubois
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, 14 Science Drive 4, 117543, Singapore.
authors.forename: Samuel D
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Howard
authors.affiliation: Fonoteca Zoológica, Departamento de Biodiversidad y Biología Evolutiva, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (CSIC), C/José Gutiérrez Abascal, 2, 28006, Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Rafael
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Marquez
authors.affiliation: Australian Museum Research Institute, Australian museum 1 College Street, Sydney, NSW, 2010, Australia.
authors.forename: Jodi J L
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Rowley
authors.affiliation: Institut für Integrierte Naturwissenschaften, Abteilung Biologie, Universität Koblenz-Landau, Universitätsstraße 1, 56070, Koblenz, Germany.
authors.forename: J Maximilian
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Dehling
authors.affiliation: Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Institut de Systématique, Evolution, Biodiversité, ISYEB - UMR 7205 CNRS MNHN UPMC EPHE, Sorbonne Universités, 57 rue Cuvier, 75231, Paris Cedex 05, France.
authors.forename: Philippe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Grandcolas
authors.affiliation: Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu, 610041, China.
authors.forename: Xiong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Rongchuan
authors.affiliation: Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Institut de Systématique, Evolution, Biodiversité, ISYEB - UMR 7205 CNRS MNHN UPMC EPHE, Sorbonne Universités, 57 rue Cuvier, 75231, Paris Cedex 05, France.
authors.forename: Frédéric
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Legendre
mesh_terms: D000162:Acoustics; D000818:Animals; D001210:Asia, Southeastern; D005075:Biological Evolution; D049628:Body Size; D017753:Ecosystem; D008957:Models, Genetic; D009622:Noise; D010802:Phylogeny; D011898:Ranidae / Q000235:genetics*; D014828:Vocalization, Animal
keywords: Acoustic adaptation hypothesis; Anura; Ranidae; ancestral state reconstruction; noisy environments; phylogeny