Chemical Communication

From single-celled protozoa to primates, chemical cues serve as ubiquitous markers of individual, group, kinship, and species identity. Because most anuran amphibians (frogs and toads) call to attract mates, research on their social behaviour has focussed on their bioaccoustic abilities. Yet, salamanders communciate through chemical signals. And we have shown over many years that tadpoles recognise predators, members of their own species, and kin by sensitive chemoreceptors, which become further developed after metamorphosis. Other research has demonstrated that anurans not only produce potential chemosignals but possess the neural circuitry to perceive and process this information.

About 10 years ago, we found that boreal toads chose among potential mates based on their smells. More recently, we have studied the the chemical signalling behaviour of New Zealand native frogs. Because they are 'living fossils', they never evolved the ability to communciate through bioaccoustic signals. Yet we discovered that they maintain complex social networks by means of chemosignals.

In Korea, toads do not generally use calls to attract mates. As in most animals, though, females choose their mates very carefully. We are studying the chemical communication systems of two species of toads to determine the information that their chemosignals carry, the social and ecological contexts in which they are used, their genetic basis, and their chemical structure. This research involves a combination of observation and experimentation, both in the laboratory and the field.