Efficiency is a desirable trait in a partner, even if you're a frog. New research suggests that female gray tree frogs prefer to mate with males that can effectively multitask, as evidenced by a study of mating calls.
The researchers found that the female frogs prefer mates that can produce long, rapidly pulsating and frequent mating calls.
Typical mating calls for this frog species have a duration of 20-40 pulses per call and anywhere from five to 15 calls per minute. Male frogs face a tradeoff between call rate and duration. But the research shows that the females prefer mating calls that are longer and more frequent -- no simple task.
"It's kind of like singing and dancing at the same time," said lead study author Jessica Ward, a postdoctoral researcher at University of Minnesota.
Ward said the results of their frog study supported the hypothesis, which suggests that females prefer mates that can do two or more hard things at once, something seen as a desirable quality in males.
By listening to recordings of 1,000 mating calls, Ward and her colleagues learned that males which produce longer calls only do so at shorter rates.
"It's easy to imagine that we humans might also prefer multitasking partners, such as someone who can successfully earn a good income, cook dinner, manage the finances and get the kids to soccer practice on time," Ward said.
The study was part of Ward's larger research goal of understanding how female frogs are able to distinguish between individual mating calls amid a chorus of multiple males vying for their attention. As humans age, they face a similar problem, often referred to as the "cocktail party effect," wherein we lose the ability to distinguish an individual voice amid a crowd.
The cocktail party effect is often the first sign of an older person's diminishing ability to hear.
By better understanding how frogs hear, it could lead to the development of better hearing aids, the researchers suggest.
Ward and her colleagues' study is published in the journal Animal Behavior.