Social context can override temperature effects on frog calling

Evidence

Weather forecasting applied to the influence of environment on calling was discussed by Steelman and Dorcas (2010) as an efficient method to interpret time series data. However, simultaneously, there is evidence that the social environment may be important in influencing the signal content because temperature, at least in the Common eastern froglet, Crinia signifier, seems subordinated to social calling (Wong et al., 2004). This means that water temperature has an effect only for individuals that were calling continuously on their own for this species, but it occurs without effect for individuals calling in duet or groups. — Bernie Krause and Almo Farina, Using Ecoacoustic Methods to Survey the…, 66

Categorization

• XREF: Complicates the clean environmental-determinism model; relevant to deep-listening-as-method debates in INTD 3970 about whether soundscape is a pure environmental readout or socially constructed.
• QUESTION: If social context overrides abiotic temperature cues, how reliable are single-species acoustic phenology metrics? Caveat for interpreting ichthy/frog chorus data.

Related

• Global warming has shifted frog calling seasons earlier by ten to thirteen days (similarity 0.80)