Charlton Benjamin D, Huang Yan, Swaisgood Ronald R
Carnivores, Zoo Atlanta, 800 Cherokee Avenue, Atlanta, GA 30315-1440, USA.
Biol Lett. 2009 Oct 23;5(5):597-9. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2009.0331. Epub 2009 Jun 17.
In the current study, we used male giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) bleats in a habituation-discrimination paradigm to determine whether females discriminate between the vocalizations of different males. We found that females habituated to the bleats of a specific male showed a significant dishabituation when they were presented with bleats from a novel male. Further playbacks, in which we standardized the mean fundamental frequency (pitch) and amplitude modulation of male bleats, indicated that amplitude modulation is the key feature that females attend to when discriminating between male callers. Our results show that female giant pandas can discriminate between the vocalizations of potential mates and provide a platform for further studies investigating the functional role of caller identity in giant panda sexual communication.
在当前的研究中,我们在习惯化-辨别范式中使用雄性大熊猫(Ailuropoda melanoleuca)的咩叫声,以确定雌性大熊猫是否能区分不同雄性的叫声。我们发现,习惯了特定雄性咩叫声的雌性大熊猫,在听到来自陌生雄性的咩叫声时会出现显著的去习惯化。进一步的回放实验中,我们对雄性咩叫声的平均基频(音高)和调幅进行了标准化,结果表明,调幅是雌性大熊猫在区分雄性叫声发出者时所关注的关键特征。我们的研究结果表明,雌性大熊猫能够区分潜在配偶的叫声,并为进一步研究叫声发出者身份在大熊猫性交流中的功能作用提供了一个平台。