Too many male calls hinder female gray tree frogs' mate selection

A recent iScience paper reports that female gray tree frogs experience choice overload when faced with numerous male mating calls. Scientists captured 60 females from breeding choruses in East Tennessee and exposed them to a single long, attractive call alongside one, three, or seven shorter, less attractive calls. With more distractor calls, females' ability to select the preferred call declined, decision times lengthened, and many did not choose at all within a ten-minute window.

The sequential presentation of calls rules out energetic masking from overlapping signals, pointing to cognitive constraints as the cause. The authors suggest that less attractive males might benefit by joining larger choruses, while attractive males could gain by calling in smaller groups. Future research will examine how these dynamics play out in natural choruses where calls overlap.