University of Chicago Press
The Tungara Frog: A Study in Sexual Selection and Communication
Key Metrics
- Michael J Ryan
- University of Chicago Press
- Paperback
- 9780226732299
- 9.02 X 5.98 X 0.56 inches
- 0.81 pounds
- Nature > Animals - Fish
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
In the T�ngara Frog, the most detailed and informative single study available of frogs and their reproductive behavior, Michael J. Ryan demonstrates the interplay of sexual and natural selection. Using techniques from ethology, behavioral ecology, sensory physiology, physiological ecology, and theoretical population genetics in his research, Ryan shows that large males with low-frequency calls mate most successfully. He examines in detail a number of explanations for the females' preferences, and he considers possible evolutionary forces leading to the males' success.
Though certain vocalizations allow males to obtain mates and thus should be favored by sexual selection, this study highlights two important costs of such sexual displays: the frogs expand considerable energy in their mating calls, and they advertise their whereabouts to predators. Ryan considers in detail how predators, especially the frige-lipped bat (Trachops cirrhosus), affect the evolution of the t�ngara frog's calls.
Author Bio
Michael J. Ryan is the Clark Hubbs Regents Professor in Zoology at the University of Texas, Austin. He received a BA in Life Sciences at Glassboro State College in New Jersey (1975), an MS in Zoology from Rutgers University at Newark (1977), and his Ph.D. in
Neurobiology & Behavior from Cornell University (1982).
He was then a Miller Postdoctoral Fellow in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California at Berkeley (1982-1984) before beginning a position as an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas where he has remained. He has been a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama since 1982, and currently is a Senior Research Associate there. Ryan’s primary research interests are in the evolution and mechanisms of animal behavior, especially animal communication and sexual selection.
Ryan is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Institute for Advanced Studies in Berlin. He has received the Distinguished Animal Behaviorist Lifetime Achievement Award from the Animal Behavior Society (2017), the E.O. Wilson Naturalist Award from the American
Society of Naturalists (2010), the Joseph Grinnell Medal from the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (UC, Berkeley; 2008), and the Exemplar Award from the Center for Integrative Studies in Animal Behavior (Indiana University, 2007).
He also was selected as one of the 25 Leaders in Animal Behavior (book published 2010, Cambridge Univ. Press). Ryan has presented more than 150 invited lectures. He has also published more than 350 scientific papers (excluding Perspectives, News & Views, Primers, etc.) including 13 scientific papers in Science, 3 in Nature, 5 in PNAS USA, and 4 in Current Biology. He has also published five books, two as sole author, one co-authored, and two edited volumes. His 1985 book The Túngara Frog, A Study in Sexual Selection and Communication is considered a classic in its field, and most recently in 2018, A Taste for the Beautiful, The Evolution of Attraction.
Ryan has served on numerous external reviews for science departments, has been a panel member for the National Science Foundation, and served on numerous editorial boards.
He is currently on the Board of Reviewing Editors for Science which he first joined in 2011, and is chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Max Planck Institute in Seeweisen, Germany, he has been on that board since 2010
Source: The University of Texas - College of Natural Sciences
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