ArticleThe Journal of experimental biology2015
Species-specific loss of sexual dimorphism in vocal effectors accompanies vocal simplification in African clawed frogs (Xenopus).
Article in The Journal of experimental biology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 19 citations in OpenAlex.
- Neck muscle twitch properties are associated with constraint on drum speed in woodpeckers, but not drum length.The Journal of experimental biology · 2025Article
- Population Variation in Steroid Hormone-Related Gene Expression and Sexually Dimorphic Communication in the Electric Fish Apteronotus albifrons.Journal of experimental zoology. Part A, Ecological and integrative physiology · 2025Article
- The 'silent' half: diversity, function and the critical knowledge gap on female frog vocalizations.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Article
- Generation, Coordination, and Evolution of Neural Circuits for Vocal Communication.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2020Review
- Androgen receptors and muscle: a key mechanism underlying life history trade-offs.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2018Review
- Insight into the neuroendocrine basis of signal evolution: a case study in foot-flagging frogs.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2018Review
- Evolution of vocal patterns: tuning hindbrain circuits during species divergence.The Journal of experimental biology · 2017Article
- Rhythm generation, coordination, and initiation in the vocal pathways of male African clawed frogs.Journal of neurophysiology · 2017Article
- Probing forebrain to hindbrain circuit functions in Xenopus.Genesis (New York, N.Y. : 2000) · 2017Review
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Phylogenetic studies can reveal patterns of evolutionary change, including the gain or loss of elaborate courtship traits in males. Male African clawed frogs generally produce complex and rapid courtship vocalizations, whereas female calls are simple and slow. In a few species, however, male vocalizations are also simple and slow, suggesting loss of male-typical traits. Here, we explore features of the male vocal organ that could contribute to loss in two species with simple, slow male calls. In Xenopus boumbaensis, laryngeal morphology is more robust in males than in females. Larynges are larger, have a more complex cartilaginous morphology and contain more muscle fibers. Laryngeal muscle fibers are exclusively fast-twitch in males but are both fast- and slow-twitch in females. The laryngeal electromyogram, a measure of neuromuscular synaptic strength, shows greater potentiation in males than in females. Male-specific physiological features are shared with X. laevis, as well as with a species of the sister clade, Silurana tropicalis, and thus are likely ancestral. In X. borealis, certain aspects of laryngeal morphology and physiology are sexually monomorphic rather than dimorphic. In both sexes, laryngeal muscle fibers are of mixed-twitch type, which limits the production of muscle contractions at rapid intervals. Muscle activity potentiation and discrete tension transients resemble female rather than male X. boumbaensis. The de-masculinization of these laryngeal features suggests an alteration in sensitivity to the gonadal hormones that are known to control the sexual differentiation of the larynx in other Xenopus and Silurana species.
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