Calling behaviour of Elachistocleis matogrosso (Anura, Microhylidae) is associated with habitat temperature and rainfall

ABSTRACT

Anuran calling behaviour is determined by environmental, endogenous, and social factors. The effect of these factors usually differs among and within species. We used acoustic monitoring to evaluate the effects of environmental predictors on the daily occurrence and call production of Elachistocleis matogrosso (Microhylidae) in the northeastern Brazilian Pantanal. We monitored the calling behaviour of the species over a complete annual cycle at four acoustic monitoring stations. Daily occurrence was positively associated with high minimum air temperature at all sites, and was also related to days with high abundant rainfall at two sites. This result suggests that the minimum temperature acts as the main trigger initiating calling activity in this species. In contrast, call production was positively related to rainfall and accumulated rainfall over the previous three days, with no effect of air temperature. This observation could be related to a high abundance of calling males after some rainy periods, when more water bodies are available for reproduction. Our findings reveal the importance of performing studies at different spatial-temporal and calling scales because the effects of environmental predictors on anuran calling behaviour may differ among sites, and this factor is also important when analysing daily occurrence or call production.

KEYWORDS:

• Anuran
• automated recorder
• Brazil
• communication
• Pantanal
• signal recognition software

Acknowledgements

We greatly appreciate the financial support from the following institutions: This study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - Brasil (CAPES)- Finance Code 01; Instituto Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia em Áreas Úmidas (INAU/UFMT/CNPq); Centro de Pesquisa do Pantanal (CPP); Brehm Funds for International Bird Conservation (BF), Bonn, Germany; the Organisation of American States through its Partnerships Program for Education and Training of the Coimbra Group of Brazilian Universities (OAS/PAEC/GCUB, PRP). Furthermore, we thank the SESC Pantanal, Mato Grosso, for permission to conduct research on their property and for their logistical help with our fieldwork. We wish to thank to Prof. Dr. José de Souza Nogueira from Post-Graduate Programme in Physics, UFMT, kindly provided the weather data for the time period of our study and to Ana Silvia Tissiani for her technical support. We are grateful to two anonymous reviewers, whose comments helped to improve the manuscript. This study is part of the biodiversity monitoring project: Sounds of the Pantanal – The Pantanal Automated Acoustic Biodiversity Monitoring Programme of INAU/UFMT, Cuiabá, Mato Grosso, Brazil, conducted under SISBIO permit no. 39095 (KLS).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary Material

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