Success of capture of toads improved by manipulating acoustic characteristics of lures

Management of invasive vertebrates is a crucial component of conservation. Trapping reproductive adults is often effective for control, and modification of traps may greatly increase their attractiveness to such individuals. Cane toads (Rhinella marina) are invasive, and males use advertisement vocalisations to attract reproductive females. In amphibians, including toads, specific structural parameters of calls (e.g. dominant frequency and pulse rate) may be attractive to females. Some cane toad traps use an artificial advertisement vocalisation to attract toads. We determined whether variation of the call's parameters (volume, dominant frequency and pulse rate) could increase the capture rate of gravid females.

Overall, traps equipped with loud calls (80 dB at 1 m) caught significantly more toads, and proportionally more gravid females, than traps with quiet calls (60 dB at 1 m), and traps with low dominant frequency calls caught more gravid females than traps with median frequency calls. Traps with high pulse rate calls attracted more females than traps with low pulse rate calls. Approximately 91% of the females trapped using a low frequency and high pulse rate combination call were gravid, whereas in traps using a call with population median parameters only approximately 75% of captured females were gravid.

Calls that indicated large-bodied males (low frequency) with high energy reserves (high pulse rate) are often attractive to female anurans and were effective lures for female toads in our study. The design of future trapping regimes should account for behavioural preferences of the target sex. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry.