Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, National Zoological Park, 1500 Remount Road, Front Royal, VA, 22630, USA.
College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742, USA.
Sci Rep. 2018 Jul 5;8(1):10202. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-28307-y.
Tightly synchronized reproduction in vast wildebeest herds underpins the keystone role this iconic species plays in the Serengeti. However, despite decades of study, the proximate synchronizing mechanism remains unknown. Combining a season-long field experiment with simple stochastic process models, we show that females exposed to playback of male rutting vocalizations are over three times more synchronous in their expected time to mating than a control group isolated from all male stimuli. Additionally, predictions of both mating and calving synchrony based on the playback group were highly consistent with independent data on wildebeest mating and calving synchrony, while control-based predictions were inconsistent with the data. Taken together, our results provide the first experimental evidence that male rutting vocalizations alone could account for the highly synchronized reproduction observed in Serengeti wildebeest. Given anthropogenically driven losses in many areas, a mechanistic understanding of synchrony can highlight additional risks declining wildebeest populations may face.
大群角马的紧密同步繁殖支撑了这个标志性物种在塞伦盖蒂中扮演的关键角色。然而，尽管经过了几十年的研究，近距离同步的机制仍然未知。本研究将一个长达一个季节的野外实验与简单的随机过程模型相结合，结果表明，与对照组（与所有雄性刺激隔离）相比，暴露于雄性发情叫声重放中的雌性在预期交配时间上的同步性要高出三倍以上。此外，基于重放组的交配和产犊同步性预测与独立的角马交配和产犊同步性数据高度一致，而基于对照组的预测则与数据不一致。总之，我们的研究结果提供了第一个实验证据，表明雄性发情叫声本身就可以解释塞伦盖蒂角马高度同步的繁殖现象。鉴于许多地区的人为因素导致其数量减少，对同步性的机制理解可以突出处于衰退中的角马种群可能面临的额外风险。
