Phylogenetic and adaptive components of the anuran advertisement call correlate with temporal species co-occurrence

Vocalization is the major means of communication in animal groups and crucial in mate recognition. The call is composed by spectral parameters (i.e., physical structure of the call) and temporal (i.e., time-quantized parameters), whose evolution can be influenced by environmental and evolutionary constraints. At the same time, acoustic niche partitioning plays a key role in determining species co-occurrence. However, little is known about how the interplay between the mode of evolution of call parameters and environmental factors affects species co-occurrence. Here, we analyzed seven spectral and temporal call parameters of 19 pond-dwelling anuran species from southeastern Brazil. We recorded the spatial and temporal occurrence of species along 18 months in 13 water bodies. Whereas the environment had a stronger effect on temporal than phylogenetic relationships did, niche conservatism was the main predictor of spectral parameters. The advertisement call was related to neither spatial nor temporal species co-occurrence. However, species with the highest temporal co-occurrence had greater difference in temporal call parameters. Our study demonstrates the importance of inherited and adaptive components of the call to anuran species co-occurrence at the metacommunity scale.