Reby D, Cargnelutti B, Hewison AJ
I.N.R.A.-I.R.G.M.
Anim Behav. 1999 May;57(5):1121-1128. doi: 10.1006/anbe.1998.1056.
We studied the barking behaviour of free-ranging roe deer, Capreolus capreolus, in response to disturbance provoked by a human observer and in response to the playback of recorded barks. Three alternative functions of this behaviour were hypothesized: barking is an alarm call, a pursuit-deterrent call or a territorial call. Our observational data showed that, in the presence of a source of disturbance, solitary individuals barked more frequently than deer in groups, suggesting that barking does not serve to warn conspecifics of potential danger, but rather to inform any potential predator that it has been identified. The frequencies of both barking and counterbarking (barking of a second deer in response to the barks of an initiator) were inversely correlated with ambient luminosity, probably because the assessment of danger is more difficult when visibility is low. Males barked more frequently than females when disturbed. Moreover, when we played back a series of barks from within a buck's territory, this provoked counterbarking or aggressive behaviours rather than flight. Older bucks responded more frequently to playbacks than younger bucks. We suggest that while barking may initially have evolved as a signal to deter predator pursuit, it could play an important, secondary role in the territorial system of this species. Copyright 1999 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.
我们研究了自由放养的狍（Capreolus capreolus）在面对人类观察者引发的干扰以及回放录制的狍叫声时的吠叫行为。针对这种行为的三种可能功能提出了假设：吠叫是一种警报叫声、一种驱赶追捕的叫声或一种领地叫声。我们的观察数据表明，在存在干扰源的情况下，单独的个体比群体中的鹿叫得更频繁，这表明吠叫并非用于警告同种个体潜在的危险，而是向任何潜在的捕食者表明它已被发现。吠叫和回应吠叫（第二只鹿对发起者的吠叫做出的回应吠叫）的频率均与环境亮度呈负相关，这可能是因为在能见度低时对危险的评估更加困难。受到干扰时，雄性比雌性叫得更频繁。此外，当我们在雄鹿的领地内回放一系列叫声时，这引发了回应吠叫或攻击行为，而非逃跑。年长的雄鹿比年轻的雄鹿对回放叫声的反应更频繁。我们认为，虽然吠叫最初可能是作为一种威慑捕食者追捕的信号而进化的，但它在该物种的领地系统中可能发挥着重要的次要作用。版权所有1999年动物行为研究协会。
