Little is known about population-wide social structure in amphibians, which are generally considered
as the least social vertebrates and assumed to lack the cognitive capabilities for higher sociality as a
result of their small brains. Nevertheless amphibians show a wide array of social behaviours and
especially poison frogs dispose of most, if not all, behavioural prerequisites that accompany longer
lasting social structures. In the current project I want to investigate the prevalence and consequences
of social structures in a captive and a semi-natural population of the territorial poison frog Allobates
femoralis. I will monitor both populations with microphone arrays to continuously record calling
behaviour and interactions, and conduct extensive behavioural observations in the field. The field
study will employ a state-of-the-art embedded, wireless sensor network with sound source localization
and acoustic caller identification. Using social network analysis I will then explore and quantify
structures in the communication and social network of these populations. For the natural population I
will finally correlate individual network metrics with reproductive success to investigate the influence
of an individuals position in its social network on its reproductive fitness. The proposed project is
exceptional in taking an integrative approach to investigate social structure and its consequences in an
amphibian using state-of-the-art technology and social network analysis in both a fully controlled
laboratory population and a semi-natural field population. The proposed project shall also pioneer the
further development of sensor networks for studies on sociality and promote their use in behavioural
research.