Daniel T Blumstein, Natalie Vu, Megan Edic, Linh Vo, Julien G A Martin
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
The nonlinearity and fear hypothesis predicts that highly aroused vocal mammals and birds produce vocalizations (notably alarm calls and screams) which contain a variety of non-linear phenomena (NLP). Such vocalizations often sound ‘noisy’ because vocal production systems are over-blown when animals are highly aroused. While much is known about the conditions under which animals produce vocalizations containing NLP, and how species respond to them, there is little research about the heritability of such behavioral traits. Using the quantitative genetic animal model, we estimated the genetic basis of ‘noise’ in alarm calls produced by females and found significant heritability in call entropy—our measure of the noisiness. About 9% of variance in noisiness can be accounted for by genetic differences. Taken together, these findings suggest that the degree to which marmots produce noisy calls is modestly heritable and can be thus subject to further evolution via natural selection.
Current ZoologyAgricultural and Biological Sciences-Animal Science and Zoology
CiteScore
3.20
自引率
9.10%
发文量
111
审稿时长
6 weeks
期刊介绍:
About the Journal
Current Zoology (formerly Acta Zoologica Sinica, founded in 1935) is an open access, bimonthly, peer-reviewed international journal of zoology. It publishes review articles and research papers in the fields of ecology, evolution and behaviour.
Current Zoology is sponsored by Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, along with the China Zoological Society.