Leptobrachella liui, Fei and Ye, 1990, Fei and Ye, 1990

Ding, Guo-Hua, Chen, Zhi-Qiang, Tang, Yun & Lin, Zhi-Hua, 2019, The advertisement call of Leptobrachella liui Fei and Ye, 1990 (Anura: Megophryidae), Zootaxa 4576 (3), pp. 588-590 : 588-589

The

advertisement calls of five males were recorded in the field at Suichang, Zhejiang, China (28°22’14” N, 118°53’25” E) in April 2017. Calls were recorded using a Sony IC ICD-SX1000 recorder with an internal microphone placed at a distance of approximately 0.5 m from focal males, with a sampling frequency resolution of 44.1 kHz and 16- bit resolution. A total of 245 calls were recorded and the number of calls ranged from 22 to 81 among individuals. The air temperature at the time of recording varied between 14.7–20.2° C. Calls were analyzed using Praat 6.0.36. Stream background noise was reduced in Cool Edit Pro 2.1. Description and terminology of call parameters followed ( Xu et al. 2005): call duration (CD, in s), note number in a single call (NN), call intensity (CTI, in dB), dominant frequency (DF, in Hz), fundamental frequency (F0, in Hz), the frequency of first to third formants (F1, F2 and F3, in Hz). We used withinmale coefficients of variation (CV W) of each parameter in order to classify them as dynamic (CV W> 10%), static (CV W <5%) or intermediate (5% ≤ CV W ≤ 10%) (Pr ӧhl 2003); among-male coefficients of variation (CV A) were calculated from the grand mean and standard deviation. The ratio CV A /CV W was calculated as a measure of relative between-male variability. Ratios of CV A /CV W> 1.0 are usually indicative that the parameter could be used for individual recognition (e.g., Gambale et al. 2014). Values are presented as mean ± standard deviation and range .

The advertisement call of L. liui ( Fig. 1 ) consists of multiple pulsed notes, and is highly amplitude-modulated, with amplitude peaking towards the start of each call. Calls of the five males consisted of 3.11 ± 0.35 notes (range 2–4 notes), with one pulse per note, CD of 0.063 ± 0.008 s (range 0.026 – 0.078 s), CTI of 72.04 ±1.96 dB (range 67.63–79.09 dB). The DF ranged from 4814.5 to 5489.6 Hz (average 5234.4 ± 143.4 Hz), whereas the F0 ranged from 811.8 to 1179.5 Hz (average 968.0 ± 73.7 Hz). The F1, F2 and F3 were emitted from 1693.4 to 2419.9 Hz (average 2050.9 ± 150.5 Hz), 2632.0 to 4049.7 Hz (average 3215.8 ± 391.4 Hz) and 4161.9 to 5258.3 Hz (average 4635.3 ± 267.6 Hz), respectively. The CV W of CD, NN, CTI, DF, F0, F1, F2 and F3 were 9.6 ± 4.1 % (range 4.0–15.5 %), 6.2 ± 6.7 % (range 0–16.1 %), 1.9 ± 0.5 % (range 1.2–2.3 %), 1.8 ± 0.9 % (range 0.9–3.2 %), 7.1 ± 1.9 % (range 4.3–9.7 %), 5.7 ± 2.3 % (range 3.1–9.3 %), 6.3 ± 3.5 % (range 3.0–9.3 %) and 2.7 ± 1.0 % (range 1.4–3.7 %), respectively. The ratios of CV A /CV W in CD, NN, CTI, DF, F0, F1, F2 and F3 were 1.3, 1.8, 1.5, 1.4, 1.1, 1.2, 1.9 and 2.2, respectively.

The advertisement call of L. alpinus contains approximately nine notes, with average CD of 0.270 ± 0.069 s, average DF, F0 and F1 all of 6700 Hz ( Xu et al. 2005). The advertisement call of L. oshanensis consists of three notes, with average CD of 0.046 ± 0.013 s (range 0.029 –0.067 s) and DF ranging between 4402–4633 Hz (average 4521.9 ± 79.6 Hz) ( Jiang et al. 2002). These reported call parameters are different among the three Chinese endemic Leptobrachella species, and could be helpful in species identification in the field. CTI, DF and F3 are classified as static traits in L. lilui , whereas other parameters are intermediate due to their average CV W between 5 % and 10 %. The ratios of CV A /CV W in all parameters were more than 1.0, suggesting that advertisement calls of L. liui could play a role in individual recognition.

Figures

FIGURE 1. (A) Oscillogram of a 10 s long call bout of Leptobrachella liui (voucher LSULL2017001) recorded in Suichang, Zhejiang, China. Air temperature at the time of recording was 17.5 °C. (B) Detailed view of a 1 s section of the oscillogram and (C) spectrogram of the same call. (D) Power spectrum of the same advertisement call. (E) Dorsal and ventral views of a male L. liui from the same locality characterized by a gray-brown or brown dorsum, a W-shaped marking on the upper part of the shoulder, a dark triangular marking between the eyes, light brown color on upper arm and tibio-tarsal articulation, few nebulous spots on chest and belly and presence of white glands arranged in two lateral rows on belly (Fei & Ye 2016). The latter trait is not visible in dorsal or ventral view.