Mother Vocal Recognition in Antarctic Fur Seal Arctocephalus gazella Pups: A Two-Step Process

PloS One
Thierry AubinIsabelle Charrier

Abstract

In otariids, mother's recognition by pups is essential to their survival since females nurse exclusively their own young and can be very aggressive towards non-kin. Antarctic fur seal, Arctocephalus gazella, come ashore to breed and form dense colonies. During the 4-month lactation period, females alternate foraging trips at sea with suckling period ashore. On each return to the colony, females and pups first use vocalizations to find each other among several hundred conspecifics and olfaction is used as a final check. Such vocal identification has to be highly efficient. In this present study, we investigated the components of the individual vocal signature used by pups to identify their mothers by performing playback experiments on pups with synthetic signals. We thus tested the efficiency of this individual vocal signature by performing propagation tests and by testing pups at different playback distances. Pups use both amplitude and frequency modulations to identify their mother's voice, as well as the energy spectrum. Propagation tests showed that frequency modulations propagated reliably up to 64m, whereas amplitude modulations and spectral content greatly were highly degraded for distances over 8m. Playback on pups at di...Continue Reading

References

Jan 25, 2003·Behavioural Processes·F Stephen Dobson, Pierre Jouventin
May 7, 2009·Die Naturwissenschaften·Benjamin J PitcherIsabelle Charrier
Dec 5, 2009·Animal Cognition·Isabelle CharrierNicolas Mathevon

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Citations

Jan 31, 2019·Current Zoology·Andrea RavignaniBart de Boer
Oct 18, 2019·PloS One·Yoonji KimDiana Van Lancker Sidtis
May 19, 2020·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences·Natalie T Tegtman, Robert D Magrath
Jul 25, 2017·Current Biology : CB·Nicolas MathevonIsabelle Charrier
Aug 20, 2021·NeuroImage·Anna GáborMárta Gácsi

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Methods Mentioned

BETA
PCA

Software Mentioned

IPEV
ETHOTAAF
ASL
Statistica
Syntana
Statsoft
Avisoft
Avisoft synthesizer
Specht

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