Matías Muñoz
I am broadly interested in animal behaviour, with a particular enthusiasm for animal communication. So far, my research has focused on frog acoustic communication and the influence of environmental features on the production, transmission and perception of mating signals. Diverse factors may influence the effectiveness of communication at any of these communication stages. Variation in calling site may for example affect signal production and transmission. Certain call site characteristics can lead to changes in frequency and amplitude, features that are often crucial in mate attraction. Habitat-dependent climatic variation can also be an important factor in animal communication, affecting for example energy expenditure, transmission efficacy and even acoustic perception. In my PhD project I will assess the role of the signaling environment in signal evolution at two different scales, the calling site and climatic niche position.
Selected Publications
Muñoz MI. (2018) Digest: Early exposure to facial cues facilitates facial learning in paper wasps. Evolution, https://doi.org/10.1111/evo.13644
Wilczynski W., Quispe M., Muñoz MI., Penna M. (2017) Arginine vasotocin, the social neuropeptide of amphibians and reptiles. Frontiers in Endocrinology, 8:186.
Penna M., Moreno-Gómez F.N., Muñoz MI. & Cisternas J. (2017) Vocal responses of austral forest frogs to amplitude and degradation patterns of advertisement calls. Behavioral Processes, 140: 190-201.
Muñoz MI. & Penna M. (2016) Extended amplification of acoustic signals by amphibian burrows. Journal of Comparative Physiology – A, 202: 473-487