Female Treefrogs Overwhelmed by Too Many Mating Calls, Study Finds

In a study published in iScience in August, researchers found that female Cope's gray treefrogs experience 'choice overload' when presented with an abundance of mating calls, complicating their selection of mates. The investigation, conducted by Claire Hemingway and her team from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, alongside the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, involved 60 female frogs from eastern Tennessee. In controlled sound conditions, the females successfully identified the target call 77% of the time when given two options, but this dropped to 50% with four calls and 25% with eight. The time taken to decide increased, with 3% unable to choose from two calls and 18% from eight. Background noise did not influence the outcomes. Co-authored by Jessie Tanner, the study indicates that such overload might impede evolution by allowing less desirable males to mate. Experts commended the study for distinguishing between noise and choice overload.