  We theoretically study the role of excitatory and inhibitory interactions in
the aggregations of male frogs. In most frogs, males produce sounds to attract
conspecific females, which activates the calling behavior of other males and
results in collective choruses. While the calling behavior is quite effective
for mate attraction, it requires high energy consumption. In contrast,
satellite behavior is an alternative mating strategy in which males
deliberately stay silent in the vicinity of a calling male and attempt to
intercept the female attracted to the caller, allowing the satellite males to
drastically reduce their energy consumption while having a chance of mating.
Here we propose a hybrid dynamical model in which male frogs autonomously
switch among three behavioral states (i.e., calling state, resting state, and
satellite state) due to the excitatory and inhibitory interactions. Numerical
simulation of the proposed model demonstrated that (1) both collective choruses
and satellite behavior can be reproduced and (2) the satellite males can
prolong the energy depletion time of the whole aggregation while they split the
maximum chorus activity into two levels over the whole chorusing period. This
study theoretically highlights the trade-off between energy efficiency and
chorus activity in the aggregations of male frogs driven by the multiple types
of interactions.
