Pups crying bass: vocal adaptation for avoidance of age-dependent predation risk in ground squirrels? |
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Authors: | Vera A Matrosova Ilya A Volodin Elena V Volodina Andrey F Babitsky |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Vertebrate Zoology, Faculty of Biology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Vorobievy Gory, Moscow, 119992, Russia;(2) Scientific Research Department, Moscow Zoo, B. Gruzinskaya, 1, Moscow, 123242, Russia;(3) Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninsky prosp., 33, Moscow, 119071, Russia |
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Abstract: | In most mammals, larger adult body size correlates with lower fundamental frequency and more closely spaced formants in vocalizations
relative to juveniles. In alarm whistles of two free-living rodents, the speckled ground squirrel Spermophilus suslicus and yellow ground squirrel S. fulvus, these cues to body size were absent despite prominent differences in body weight and skull and larynx sizes between juveniles
and adults. No significant correlations were found between the individual maximum fundamental frequency and body weight, both
within age classes and for pooled samples of all animals within species. Furthermore, the mean alarm whistle maximum fundamental
frequencies did not differ significantly between age classes (juvenile versus adult) in the speckled squirrel and were even
significantly lower in juvenile yellow squirrels. We discuss the hypothesis that the obfuscation of vocal differences between
juvenile and adult squirrels may represent a special adaptation of pup vocal behaviour—a form of “vocal mimicry,” resulting
in imitation of adult vocal pattern to avoid infanticide and age-dependent predation risk. |
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Keywords: | Spermophilus suslicus Spermophilus fulvus Alarm call Vocal mimicry Infanticide Antipredator behaviour |
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