Volodin Ilya A, Kirilyuk Vadim E, Vasilieva Nina A, Volodina Elena V
Department of Vertebrate Zoology, Faculty of Biology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Vorobievy Gory, 1/12, Moscow, 119234, Russia.
Institute of Natural Resources, Ecology and Cryology, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Chita, 672002, Russia.
Naturwissenschaften. 2024 Dec 21;112(1):3. doi: 10.1007/s00114-024-01956-y.
We investigated acoustic variation responsible for the individuality of alarm calls produced by 50 Brandt's voles Lasiopodomys brandtii derived from 50 different wild-living colonies. For the first time, we described the calling pattern of Brandt's voles, producing a long series of short alarm calls with short inter-call intervals. The alarm calls displayed four different contours of fundamental frequency but were nevertheless strongly individually distinct within a series of 50 successive alarm calls per caller (2500 analyzed alarm calls). The average value of correct assignment of alarm calls to individuals with discriminant function analysis was 15 times higher than the value expected by chance and was robust, not decreasing with cross-validation. We discuss that the highly individualistic alarm calls provide a basis for individual recognition of callers by colony members. At the same time, heterogeneity of call contours makes the long call series less monotonous, potentially preventing habituation and promoting alertness of conspecific call recipients.
我们研究了50只来自50个不同野生群体的布氏田鼠发出的警报叫声的个体差异所对应的声学变化。我们首次描述了布氏田鼠的叫声模式，即发出一系列间隔短的短警报叫声。警报叫声呈现出四种不同的基频轮廓，但在每个呼叫者连续发出的50次警报叫声序列中（共分析了2500次警报叫声），它们在个体之间仍有很强的区别。通过判别函数分析将警报叫声正确分配给个体的平均准确率比随机预期值高15倍，且该准确率很稳健，在交叉验证中不会降低。我们认为，高度个性化的警报叫声为群体成员识别呼叫者个体提供了基础。同时，叫声轮廓的异质性使长叫声序列不那么单调，可能会防止习惯化并提高同种叫声接收者的警觉性。
