The Zone of Silence That Surrounds Herpetologists: Substrate-borne Vibrations Can Modulate Frog Behavior

Abstract

Acoustic communication among many frog species has been shown to be strongly influenced by the calls of neighboring vocalizing frogs. Since airborne frog calls are often accompanied by concomitant substrate-borne (seismic) signals, it would not be surprising if the seismic signals themselves playa role in directly modulating frog vocalizations. In this paper, several examples are presented of frog vocalizations that are modified by both naturally occurring and experimenter-induced substrate-borne signals. In light of these results, the function of these signals and the adaptive advantage of substrate-borne vibration communication in noisy environments are discussed.