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      Anuran accents: Continental‐scale citizen science data reveal spatial and temporal patterns of call variability

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          Abstract

          Many animals rely on vocal communication for mating advertisement, territorial displays, and warning calls. Advertisement calls are species‐specific, serve as a premating isolation mechanism, and reinforce species boundaries. Nevertheless, there is a great deal of interspecific variability of advertisement calls. Quantifying the variability of calls among individuals within a species and across species is critical to understand call evolution and species boundaries, and may build a foundation for further research in animal communication. However, collecting a large volume of advertisement call recordings across a large geographic area has traditionally posed a logistical barrier. We used data from the continental‐scale citizen science project FrogID to investigate the spatial and temporal patterns of call characteristics in six Australian frog species. We found intraspecific call variability in both call duration and peak frequency across species. Using resampling methods, we show that variability in call duration and peak frequency was related to the number of individuals recorded, the geographic area encompassed by those individuals, and the intra‐annual time difference between those recordings. We conclude that in order to accurately understand frog advertisement call variation, or “anuran accents,” the number of individuals in a sample must be numerous ( N ≥ 20), encompass a large geographic area relative to a species' range, and be collected throughout a species' calling season.

          Abstract

          Quantifying the variability in a species' advertisement vocalization is critical to understand call evolution and species boundaries, and may build a foundation for further research on vocalizations. We used data from the continental‐scale citizen science project FrogID to investigate the spatial and temporal patterns of call characteristics in six Australian frog species. We conclude that in order to accurately understand frog advertisement call variation, or “anuran accents,” the number of individuals in a sample must be numerous ( N ≥ 20), encompass a large geographic area relative to the species’ range, and be collected throughout the species' calling season. Photo: Litoria chloris.

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          A new dawn for citizen science.

          A citizen scientist is a volunteer who collects and/or processes data as part of a scientific enquiry. Projects that involve citizen scientists are burgeoning, particularly in ecology and the environmental sciences, although the roots of citizen science go back to the very beginnings of modern science itself.
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            The use of bioacoustics in anuran taxonomy: theory, terminology, methods and recommendations for best practice.

            Vocalizations of anuran amphibians have received much attention in studies of behavioral ecology and physiology, but also provide informative characters for identifying and delimiting species. We here review the terminology and variation of frog calls from a perspective of integrative taxonomy, and provide hands-on protocols for recording, analyzing, comparing, interpreting and describing these sounds. Our focus is on advertisement calls, which serve as premating isolation mechanisms and, therefore, convey important taxonomic information. We provide recommendations for terminology of frog vocalizations, with call, note and pulse being the fundamental subunits to be used in descriptions and comparisons. However, due to the complexity and diversity of these signals, an unequivocal application of the terms call and note can be challenging. We therefore provide two coherent concepts that either follow a note-centered approach (defining uninterrupted units of sound as notes, and their entirety as call) or a call-centered approach (defining uninterrupted units as call whenever they are separated by long silent intervals) in terminology. Based on surveys of literature, we show that numerous call traits can be highly variable within and between individuals of one species. Despite idiosyncrasies of species and higher taxa, the duration of calls or notes, pulse rate within notes, and number of pulses per note appear to be more static within individuals and somewhat less affected by temperature. Therefore, these variables might often be preferable as taxonomic characters over call rate or note rate, which are heavily influenced by various factors. Dominant frequency is also comparatively static and only weakly affected by temperature, but depends strongly on body size. As with other taxonomic characters, strong call divergence is typically indicative of species-level differences, whereas call similarities of two populations are no evidence for them being conspecific. Taxonomic conclusions can especially be drawn when the general advertisement call structure of two candidate species is radically different and qualitative call differences are thus observed. On the other hand, quantitative differences in call traits might substantially vary within and among conspecific populations, and require careful evaluation and analysis. We provide guidelines for the taxonomic interpretation of advertisement call differences in sympatric and allopatric situations, and emphasize the need for an integrative use of multiple datasets (bio-acoustics, morphology, genetics), particularly for allopatric scenarios. We show that small-sized frogs often emit calls with frequency components in the ultrasound spectrum, although it is unlikely that these high frequencies are of biological relevance for the majority of them, and we illustrate that detection of upper harmonics depends also on recording distance because higher frequencies are attenuated more strongly. Bioacoustics remains a prime approach in integrative taxonomy of anurans if uncertainty due to possible intraspecific variation and technical artifacts is adequately considered and acknowledged.
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              Citizen science can improve conservation science, natural resource management, and environmental protection

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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                sjw018@bucknell.edu
                Journal
                Ecol Evol
                Ecol Evol
                10.1002/(ISSN)2045-7758
                ECE3
                Ecology and Evolution
                John Wiley and Sons Inc. (Hoboken )
                2045-7758
                06 October 2020
                November 2020
                : 10
                : 21 ( doiID: 10.1002/ece3.v10.21 )
                : 12115-12128
                Affiliations
                [ 1 ] Australian Museum Research Institute Australian Museum Sydney NSW Australia
                [ 2 ] Department of Biology Bucknell University Lewisburg PA USA
                [ 3 ] Centre for Ecosystem Science School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences UNSW Sydney Sydney NSW Australia
                [ 4 ] Ecology & Evolution Research Centre School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences UNSW Sydney Sydney NSW Australia
                Author notes
                [*] [* ] Correspondence

                Savannah J. Weaver, Australian Museum Research Institute, Australian Museum, 1 William Street, Sydney, NSW 2010, Australia.

                Email: sjw018@ 123456bucknell.edu

                Author information
                https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5701-5321
                https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0415-2709
                https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2011-9143
                Article
                ECE36833
                10.1002/ece3.6833
                7663080
                a4f161ed-ff54-482d-a6d5-dba033cad157
                © 2020 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

                This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

                History
                : 26 May 2020
                : 26 August 2020
                : 27 August 2020
                Page count
                Figures: 5, Tables: 2, Pages: 14, Words: 9810
                Categories
                Original Research
                Original Research
                Custom metadata
                2.0
                November 2020
                Converter:WILEY_ML3GV2_TO_JATSPMC version:5.9.4 mode:remove_FC converted:13.11.2020

                Evolutionary Biology
                advertisement call,bioacoustics,frog,geographic variation,isolation by distance,temporal variation

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