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Dryad

Data from: Camouflage, conspicuousness, and inducible color change in a polymorphic, sexually dichromatic frog

Bell, Rayna1; Irian, Christian2; McLaughlin, Patrick3; Thomas, Kate4; Loew, Ellis5; Zamudio, Kelly6

Published Jul 22, 2025 on Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.hdr7sqvwn

Data files

Jul 22, 2025 version files 19.25 MB

Abstract

Sexual dichromatism is relatively rare in anuran amphibians (frogs and toads) but is striking and prevalent in the African reed frogs (Hyperoliidae). In sexually dichromatic hyperoliids, males and females exhibit shared coloration post-metamorphosis, but at the onset of maturity, females undergo a change in color and/or color pattern, whereas males typically retain the juvenile coloration. Hypothesized functions of dichromatism in reed frogs include sexual niche partitioning such that males and females use different habitats and their different colorations provide more effective camouflage in their respective habitats, or alternatively, that color patterns play a role in sex and/or mate recognition in dense breeding choruses. To test these hypotheses, we characterized several aspects of natural history, ecology, and physiology in a population of the sexually dichromatic forest reed frog (Hyperolius tuberculatus) on Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea. This dataset includes 1) dorsal reflectance measurements for male and female H. tuberculatus and reflectance measurements of the substrates the frogs were found on, 2) microspectrophotometry measurements of H. tuberculatus photoreceptors, and 3) code and custom visual models used to conduct visual modeling analyses using the R package pavo (Maia et al. 2019).