Research Symposium

BIO

Maia Erbes is a sophomore studying biology at Florida State University, where she is a member of the Moriarty Lemmon Center for Anchored Phylogenetics and the FSU Marine Turtle Research, Ecology, and Conservation group. After graduation, she plans to attend graduate school and pursue a career in marine biology research.

Temporal Analysis of Chorus Frog Vocalizations

Abstract

Acoustic signaling is vitally important in sexual selection, species recognition, and speciation across many taxa, including everything from reptiles to birds and mammals. Of these many taxa, anurans are an excellent choice for acoustic analysis, because acoustic signaling is known to be the strongest determining factor in their mate selection. Temporal variation across call sequences is known to be a factor in sexual selection, however fine scale temporal variation, such as within a single calling sequence, has been under examined.
Pseudacris feriarum is an ideal system for this analysis because the spectral properties of their call sequences are known to show significant differences between allopatric and sympatric populations, resulting in dramatic effects on speciation.
In this study, I analyzed recordings of male Pseudacris feriarum vocalizations to determine how the acoustic characteristics of a call sequence changed from beginning to end

Keywords: Evolution, Speciation, Acoustic Analysis