DOI: 10.5061/dryad.z612jm6m9
title: Within-population variation in treefrog preference functions

description: The mate choice behaviors of females can greatly affect patterns of
 reproductive success in males and influence the evolution of sexually
 selected male traits. Population-level estimates of display preferences
 may provide an accurate estimate of the strength and direction of
 selection by female choice if all females in the population show
 homogeneous preferences. However, population-level estimates may yield
 misleading estimates if there is within-population variation in mate
 preferences. While it is increasingly clear that the latter situation is
 common in nature, empirical data on the magnitude of variation in female
 preferences is required to improve our current understanding of its
 potential evolutionary consequences. We explored variation in female
 preference functions for three male call properties in a treefrog. We
 found that at best 62% of females share a preference function shape with
 the respective population curve. Population curves may accurately capture
 the direction of sexual selection, but depending on the properties of the
 constituting individual function they may over- or underestimate the
 strength of selection. Particularly population estimates suggesting weak
 selection may in fact hide the presence of individual females with strong
 but opposing preferences.
description: Acoustic playback exeriments testing call preferences in female
 treefrogs
description: # Within-population variation in treefrog preference functions
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.z612jm6m9](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.z612jm6m9) ## Description of the data and file structure This StratmanHoebelJEBReadMe.txt file was generated on 2024-06-28 by GERLINDE HOEBEL GENERAL INFORMATION 1\. Title of Dataset: **Within-population variation in preference functions reveals substantial among-female disagreement in mate assessment** 2\. Author Information             A. Principal Investigator Contact Information                         Name: Gerlinde Höbel                         Institution: UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN MILWAUKEE                         Address: 3209 N Maryland Ave, Milwaukee, WI 53211                         Email: [hoebel@uwm.edu](mailto:hoebel@uwm.edu)             B. Associate or Co-investigator Contact Information                         Name: Kane Stratman                         Institution: UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN MILWAUKEE                         Address: 3209 N Maryland Ave, Milwaukee, WI 53211                         Email: [stratma8@uwm.edu](mailto:stratma8@uwm.edu) 3\. Dates of data collection: May - June 2019 – 2022 4\. Geographic location of data collection: University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Field Station, Saukville, Wisconsin, United States 5\. Information about funding sources that supported the collection of the data:             A. Funding awarded to K Stratman:                         James and Dorathea Levenson Ecology and Field Biology Fellowship SHARING/ACCESS INFORMATION 1\. Licenses/restrictions placed on the data: not applicable 2\. Links to publications that cite or use the data: not applicable 3\. Links to other publicly accessible locations of the data: original data to be uploaded to Dryad, code for PFunc R program available on GitHub ([https://github.com/joccalor/pfunc](https://github.com/joccalor/pfunc)) 4\. Links/relationships to ancillary data sets: not applicable 5\. Was data derived from another source? no             A. If yes, list source(s): not applicable 6\. Recommended citation for this dataset: Stratman & Höbel 2024:  Within-population variation in preference functions reveals substantial among-female disagreement in mate assessment. Journal of Evolutionary Biology (JEB-2024-00096) DATA & FILE OVERVIEW 1\. File List &lt;&lt; CallDurationPreferences.csv &gt;&gt; \&gt;&gt; Call Duration Preference Data Female ID -&gt;  unique identifier of tested female columns B to H = response scores (higher numbers indicate a faster speaker approach=higher attraction to stimulus) of females responding to call stimuli varying in duration (5-29 pulses) used to generate preference functions with PFunc DUR_Shape -&gt; shape of individual female preference function for call duration (O = open, favoring extremes, C = closed, favoring intermediate values, F = flat, similar response across all trait values) DUR \_Peak -&gt; Most preferred call duration value; calculated by PFunc; peak values of flat functions are arbitrary as they could lay anywhere along the curve, and were omitted from the data set DUR \_Tolerance -&gt; spread of acceptable call duration values outside the peak; calculated by PFunc; tolerance values of flat functions are essentially infinite and were omitted from the data set DUR \_Strength -&gt; difference in attractiveness between the peak and the least-preferred values; calculated by PFunc; strength values of flat functions are essentially zero and were omitted from the data set DUR \_Responsiveness -&gt; mean magnitude of response across the entire function; calculated by PFunc \- preference score data was used to generate preference functions using the program PFunc (Kilmer et al. 2017; GitHub R-code: [https://github.com/joccalor/pfunc](https://github.com/joccalor/pfunc)); see also Kilmer, J. T., Fowler‐Finn, K. D., Gray, D. A., Höbel, G., Rebar, D., Reichert, M. S., & Rodríguez, R. L. (2017). Describing mate preference functions and other function‐valued traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 30, 1658–1673.  "missing" denotes that the female did not provide a data point for that preference score; "n/a" denotes that for females with flat preference functions the estimates for Peak, Strength and Tolerance generated by PFunc are not applicable. For flat function shapes, the peak is arbitrary, as it could lay anywhere along the curve, tolerance is essentially infinite, and strength is essentially zero. \- data used in Fig. 2 &lt;&lt; CallPeriodPreferences &gt;&gt; \&gt;&gt; Call Period Preference Data Female ID -&gt;  unique identifier of tested female columns B to H -&gt;  response scores (higher numbers indicate a faster speaker approach=higher attraction to stimulus) of females responding to call stimuli varying in call period (1.36-13.733 sec) used to generate preference functions with PFunc PERIOD_Shape -&gt;  shape of individual female preference function for call period (O = open, favoring extremes, C = closed, favoring intermediate values, F = flat, similar response across all trait values) PERIOD \_Peak -&gt; Most preferred call duration value; calculated by PFunc; peak values of flat functions are arbitrary as they could lay anywhere along the curve, and were omitted from the data set PERIOD \_Tolerance -&gt; spread of acceptable call duration values outside the peak; calculated by PFunc; tolerance values of flat functions are essentially infinite and were omitted from the data set PERIOD \_Strength -&gt; difference in attractiveness between the peak and the least-preferred values; calculated by PFunc; strength values of flat functions are essentially zero and were omitted from the data set PERIOD \_Responsiveness -&gt; mean magnitude of response across the entire function; calculated by PFunc \- preference score data was used to generate preference functions using the program PFunc (Kilmer et al. 2017; GitHub R-code: [https://github.com/joccalor/pfunc](https://github.com/joccalor/pfunc)); see also Kilmer, J. T., Fowler‐Finn, K. D., Gray, D. A., Höbel, G., Rebar, D., Reichert, M. S., & Rodríguez, R. L. (2017). Describing mate preference functions and other function‐valued traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 30, 1658–1673. "missing" denotes that the female did not provide a data point for that preference score; "n/a" denotes that for females with flat preference functions the estimates for Peak, Strength and Tolerance generated by PFunc are not applicable. For flat function shapes, the peak is arbitrary, as it could lay anywhere along the curve, tolerance is essentially infinite, and strength is essentially zero. -       data used in Fig. 3 &lt;&lt; CallFrequencyPreferences.csv &gt;&gt; \&gt;&gt; Call Frequency Preference Data Female ID -&gt; unique identifier of tested female columns B to I -&gt;  response scores (higher numbers indicate a faster speaker approach=higher attraction to stimulus) of females responding to call stimuli varying in frequency (1640-2018Hz) used to generate preference functions with PFunc FREQ_Shape -&gt;  shape of individual female preference function for call frequency (O = open, favoring extremes, C = closed, favoring intermediate values, F = flat, similar response across all trait values) FREQ \_Peak -&gt;  Most preferred call duration value; calculated by PFunc; peak values of flat functions are arbitrary as they could lay anywhere along the curve, and were omitted from the data set FREQ \_Tolerance -&gt; spread of acceptable call duration values outside the peak; calculated by PFunc; tolerance values of flat functions are essentially infinite and were omitted from the data set FREQ \_Strength -&gt; difference in attractiveness between the peak and the least-preferred values; calculated by PFunc; strength values of flat functions are essentially zero and were omitted from the data set FREQ \_Responsiveness -&gt; mean magnitude of response across the entire function; calculated by PFunc \- preference score data was used to generate preference functions using the program PFunc (Kilmer et al. 2017; GitHub R-code: [https://github.com/joccalor/pfunc](https://github.com/joccalor/pfunc)); see also Kilmer, J. T., Fowler‐Finn, K. D., Gray, D. A., Höbel, G., Rebar, D., Reichert, M. S., & Rodríguez, R. L. (2017). Describing mate preference functions and other function‐valued traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 30, 1658–1673. "missing" denotes that the female did not provide a data point for that preference score; "n/a" denotes that for females with flat preference functions the estimates for Peak, Strength and Tolerance generated by PFunc are not applicable. For flat function shapes, the peak is arbitrary, as it could lay anywhere along the curve, tolerance is essentially infinite, and strength is essentially zero. \- data used in Fig. 4 &lt;&lt; MaleCallTraits.csv &gt;&gt; \&gt;&gt;Calls of 83 male Hyla versicolor treefrogs recorded in 2017 at ponds at the UWM Field Station in Saukville, WI, USA Male ID -&gt; unique identifier of recorded males Call Duration -&gt; Duration of the advertisement call expressed in  number of pulses Call Period -&gt; time from start of one call to start of following call; in seconds Call Frequency -&gt; =call frequency; in Hz PreferenceTraitMismatch.csv \&gt;&gt;Difference between individual female call trait preferences and the average values of male calls traits DUR Fem ID -&gt; unique identifier of female tested for call duration preference DUR_peak -&gt; Most preferred call duration value of tested female; females with flat functions provided no peak value DUR_Gap -&gt; mismatch between female’s peak value and the average call duration value of males in the population; negative values indicate that female prefers shorter calls than the male average, and positive values mean that the female prefers longer calls than what the average male produces PERIOD Fem ID -&gt; unique identifier of female tested for call duration preference PERIOD \_peak -&gt; Most preferred call period value of tested female; females with flat functions provided no peak value PERIOD \_Gap -&gt; mismatch between female’s peak value and the average call period value of males in the population; negative values indicate that female prefers faster calls than the male average, and positive values mean that the female prefers slower calls than what the average male produces FREQ Fem ID -&gt; unique identifier of female tested for call duration preference FREQ \_peak -&gt; Most preferred call frequency value of tested female; females with flat functions provided no peak value FREQ \_Gap -&gt; mismatch between female’s peak value and the average call frequency value of males in the population; negative values indicate that female prefers lower frequency calls than the male average, and positive values mean that the female prefers higher frequency calls than what the average male produces -       we calculated the preference–call mismatch, using the difference between the peak preference and the mean of the respective call property, divided by the mean call property [Mismatch = (Pref - Call) / Call]. This provided a unitless measure comparable across call properties. A mismatch value of 0 indicates a perfect match between what females most prefer and the most typical male call value. -       females with flat preference functions do not provide a meaningful peak preference value, and no mismatch could be calculated. This is indicted by "n/a"             - data used in Fig. 5  &lt;&lt; DUR_stimuli.zip&gt;&gt; wave files of the 7 playback stimuli used to generate preference functions for Call Duration.  Stimuli differ in the number of pulses constituting the call, from 5 pulses to 29 pulses.  &lt;&lt; PER_stimuli.zip&gt;&gt; wave files of the 7 playback stimuli used to generate preference functions for Call Period. Calls are 17 pulses long, but differ in the silent time interval between consecutive calls. Call period (time from start of one call to start of following call) varies from 1360ms to 13733ms.  &lt;&lt; FREQ_stimuli.zip&gt;&gt; wave files of the 8 playback stimuli used to generate preference functions for Call Frequency. Calls are 17 pulses long, but differ their frequency composition, with the dominant frequency (2nd peak in call)  varying between 1640Hz to 2810 Hz 2\. Relationship between files:  'DUR_stimuli.zip' wave files were used to test ‘CallDurationPreferences.csv’.  'PER_stimuli.zip' wave files were used to test ‘CallPeriodPreferences.csv’.  'FREQ_stimuli.zip' wave files were used to test ‘CallFrequencyPreferences.csv’. ‘PreferenceTraitMismatch.csv’ relies on data PFunc preference function trait data obtained in ‘CallDurationPreferences.csv’ , ‘CallPeriodPreferences.csv’, ‘CallFrequencyPreferences.csv’ and data on average male calls from ‘MaleCallTraits.csv’ 3\. Additional related data collected that was not included in the current data package: not applicable 4\. Are there multiple versions of the dataset? no METHODOLOGICAL INFORMATION 1\. Description of methods used for collection/generation of data:             A. Acoustic playback trials with females and call recordings of males. Detailed explanation of methods can be found in Stratman & Höbel 2024:  Within-population variation in preference functions reveals substantial among-female disagreement in mate assessment. Journal of Evolutionary Biology (JEB-2024-00096)             B. Preference function traits derived from 'PFunc' accessible on GitHub ([https://github.com/joccalor/pfunc](https://github.com/joccalor/pfunc)) 2\. Methods for processing the data: preference scores input to program 'PFunc' (Kilmer et al. 2017, [https://github.com/joccalor/pfunc](https://github.com/joccalor/pfunc)) 3\. Software-specific information needed to interpret the data: See [https://github.com/joccalor/pfunc](https://github.com/joccalor/pfunc) for explanation of program PFunc to generate preference traits. JMP used for all other analysis. 4\. Standards and calibration information: not applicable 5\. Environmental/experimental conditions: Frog collection at field site occurred May-June in Wisconsin in weather ranging approximately from 65F-80F 6\. Describe any quality-assurance procedures performed on the data: not applicable 7\. People involved with sample collection, processing, analysis and/or submission:             A. All stages: K Stratman, G Höbel             B. Collection: K Stratman, G Höbel, O Feagles, E Oldehoft               C. Collection site: , N and M Byers, G Meyer (UWM Field Station)