Natural History of Model Organisms: The big potential of the small frog Eleutherodactylus coqui

  1. Sarah E Westrick  Is a corresponding author
  2. Mara Laslo
  3. Eva Fischer
  1. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, United States
  2. Harvard University, United States

Abstract

The Puerto Rican coquí frog Eleutherodactylus coqui (E. coqui) is both a cultural icon and a species with an unusual natural history that has attracted attention from researchers in a number of different fields within biology. Unlike most frogs, the coquí frog skips the tadpole stage, which makes it of interest to developmental biologists. The frog is best known in Puerto Rico for its notoriously loud mating call, which has allowed researchers to study aspects of social behavior such as vocal communication and courtship, while the ability of coquí to colonize new habitats has been used to explore the biology of invasive species. This article reviews research on the natural history of E. coqui and opportunities for future research.

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No new data was generated for this article.

The following previously published data sets were used

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Sarah E Westrick

    Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, United States
    For correspondence
    westse@illinois.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-5381-1048
  2. Mara Laslo

    Curriculum Fellow Program, Harvard University, Cambridge, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-4022-4327
  3. Eva Fischer

    Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana and Champaign, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-2916-0900

Funding

National Science Foundation (Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology,2010714)

  • Sarah E Westrick

Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg Institute for Advanced Study

  • Eva Fischer

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Reviewing Editor

  1. Helena Pérez Valle, eLife, United Kingdom

Publication history

  1. Received: August 27, 2021
  2. Accepted: January 13, 2022
  3. Accepted Manuscript published: January 14, 2022 (version 1)
  4. Version of Record published: February 8, 2022 (version 2)

Copyright

© 2022, Westrick et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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  1. Sarah E Westrick
  2. Mara Laslo
  3. Eva Fischer
(2022)
Natural History of Model Organisms: The big potential of the small frog Eleutherodactylus coqui
eLife 11:e73401.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.73401
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