Data Supporting “Studying mate preferences using inertial measurement units: A validation study with treefrogs”

Abstract

Investigations of mate choice continue to address fundamental questions about the mechanisms and evolution of animal behaviour. A common behavioural assay used to study acoustically guided mate choice with playback experiments is phonotaxis, a typically robust response in which a chooser approaches a sound source broadcasting acoustic signals, such as courtship songs or mating calls. Robust empirical studies of phonotaxis often require substantial laboratory facilities, such as a dedicated and sound-treated room or enclosure, in which the acoustic environment is controlled and in which animals are freely able to move about. The financial and space resources required to outfit a research laboratory to investigate phonotaxis may be sufficiently prohibitive such that some researchers are excluded from undertaking bioacoustic behavioural research. Here, we validate a new device designed to measure animal movements related to phonotaxis behaviour using an inertial measurement unit (IMU). The device is small and portable; it can be constructed for less than $300 US dollars; and the build instructions and code for operation are freely available (Gupta et al., 2020, HardwareX, 8, e00116). In a series of four experiments with treefrogs, we demonstrate using the device that an IMU-based approach to measuring animal movement can replicate a broad range of findings from traditional phonotaxis experiments on species recognition and sexual selection. We conclude by discussing several possible uses for IMU-based measurements of phonotaxis.