Female gray tree frogs show choice overload with too many male calls
Researchers in East Tennessee found that female gray tree frogs struggle to choose mates when presented with seven competing male calls instead of one or three.
Study setup and location
Scientists captured 60 female gray tree frogs from breeding choruses in East Tennessee for a laboratory experiment. The team played recorded mating calls to each female, offering a choice between one long target call and varying numbers of shorter distractor calls.
Effects of multiple options
Females exposed to seven shorter calls alongside the attractive long call showed signs of decision-making difficulty similar to human choice overload. This behavior contrasts with females given fewer options, who selected mates more efficiently during the testing period.
Implications for mating success
The study published in iScience suggests that an abundance of male callers can overwhelm female cognitive processing in natural settings. Such constraints may alter which individuals successfully reproduce when too many males gather to call simultaneously.
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