Like birds, frogs are a commonly studied species that rely on acoustic communication for survival and fitness. During the frog breeding season, males gather together in big groups and advertise themselves to females. Often times, parameters of male advertisement calls may signal something about the male’s quality, such as genetic quality or potential energy investment. Females make decisions about who to mate with based on the comparison of these calls, and their choice will determine the fitness of their offspring. In these cases, mate choice plays a key role in the evolution of the signals that males use. In this talk, Trina will share several stories of the ways in which we can use frog behavior to ask questions about signal evolution and decision-making to better understand how animals communicate with one another. 

Trina Chou is a third-year Ph.D. candidate in the Ecology of Evolutionary Biology Department at UTK. Working with Dr. Jessie Tanner, she studies acoustic communication in frog mating systems in various species of local treefrogs. She originally hails from Sunnyvale, CA, and graduated from Vassar College in 2023 with a B.S. in Neuroscience and Behavior, where she worked in Dr. Megan Gall’s lab for three years studying anti-predator behaviors and communication between three songbirds. While at Dr. Gall’s lab, Trina used both behavioral and neuroscience techniques to ask questions about how these songbirds communicate in rising levels of noise produced by humans. She is thrilled to be back as an SFBBO Birdy Hour speaker after sharing the results of her bird work back in 2024. 

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