Advertisement call of two Liuixalus species (Anura: Rhacophoridae) endemic to Hainan Island, China

Advertisement calls potentially represent honest signals for delimiting species and sexual selection. Quantitative statistics of individual variation in advertisement call properties can be used to predict female preferences for particular signal properties. In this study, advertisement call properties and their individual variation was analyzed in two endemic treefrog species, Liuixalus hainanus and L. ocellatus. Together with the description of the advertisement calls, our goals included determining whether call properties can be used to distinguish between the two species on the field, which acoustic properties are likely play a role in species or individual recognition, and whether they could predict the signaler's body size. We found that the dominant frequency, call duration, inter-call interval, and note number of monosyllabic calls in L. hainanus were significantly higher or longer than those in L. ocellatus. The dominant frequency was classified as a static property; the call duration, inter-call interval, inter-note interval, and note number were classified as dynamic properties in both species. The inter-note interval of multisyllabic calls was correlated with body mass, and the pulse number of monosyllabic calls was correlated with snout-vent length in L. ocellatus. These results indicate that the dominant frequency strongly contributed to species recognition of L. hainanus and L. ocellatus males. Acoustic properties reflected the signaler's body size in L. ocellatus but did not in L. hainanus. The difference in advertisement call characteristics between the two species may be due to the different reproductive strategies associated with different selection pressures and may promote the sharing of similar habitats by the two species.