title: The significance of spatial memory for water finding in a tadpole-transporting frog.
abstract: The ability to associate environmental cues with valuable resources strongly increases the chances of finding them again, and thus memory often guides animal movement. For example, many temperate region amphibians show strong breeding site fidelity and will return to the same areas even after the ponds have been destroyed. In contrast, many tropical amphibians depend on exploitation of small, scattered and fluctuating resources such as ephemeral pools for reproduction. It remains unknown whether tropical amphibians rely on spatial memory for effective exploitation of their reproductive resources. Poison frogs (Dendrobatidae) routinely shuttle their tadpoles from terrestrial clutches to dispersed aquatic deposition sites. We investigated the role of spatial memory for relocating previously discovered deposition sites in an experimental population of the brilliant-thighed poison frog,Allobates femoralis, a species with predominantly male tadpole transport. We temporarily removed an array of artificial pools that served as the principal tadpole deposition resource for the population. In parallel, we set up an array of sham sites and sites containing conspecific tadpole odour cues. We then quantified the movement patterns and site preferences of tadpole-transporting males by intensive sampling of the area and tracking individual frogs. We found that tadpole-carrier movements were concentrated around the exact locations of removed pools and most individuals visited several removed pool sites. In addition, we found that tadpole-transporting frogs were attracted to novel sites that contained high concentrations of conspecific olfactory tadpole cues. Our results suggest thatA. femoralismales rely heavily on spatial memory for efficient exploitation of multiple, widely dispersed deposition sites once they are discovered. Additionally, olfactory cues may facilitate the initial discovery of the new sites.
authors.affiliation: University of Vienna, Department of Cognitive Biology, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Andrius
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pašukonis
authors.affiliation: University of Vienna, Department of Integrative Zoology, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Katharina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Trenkwalder
authors.affiliation: University of Vienna, Department of Integrative Zoology, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Max
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ringler
authors.affiliation: University of Vienna, Department of Integrative Zoology, Vienna, Austria; University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Messerli Research Institute, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Eva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ringler
authors.affiliation: University of Vienna, Department of Integrative Zoology, Vienna, Austria; Haus des Meeres - Aqua Terra Zoo GmbH, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Rosanna
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mangione
authors.affiliation: University of Vienna, Department of Integrative Zoology, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Jolanda
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Steininger
authors.affiliation: University of Vienna, Department of Cognitive Biology, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Ian
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Warrington
authors.affiliation: University of Vienna, Department of Integrative Zoology, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Walter
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Hödl
keywords: Dendrobatidae; amphibian learning; olfactory orientation; spatial cognition; spatial memory; tadpole transport