Radiographic analysis of vocal tract length and its relation to overall body size in two canid species

Journal of Zoology : Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London
K PlotskyKevin Chase

Abstract

Body size is an important determinant of resource and mate competition in many species. Competition is often mediated by conspicuous vocal displays, which may help to intimidate rivals and attract mates by providing honest cues to signaler size. Fitch proposed that vocal tract resonances (or formants) should provide particularly good, or honest, acoustic cues to signaler size because they are determined by the length of the vocal tract, which in turn, is hypothesized to scale reliably with overall body size. There is some empirical support for this hypothesis, but to date, many of the effects have been either mixed for males compared with females, weaker than expected in one or the other sex, or complicated by sampling issues. In this paper, we undertake a direct test of Fitch's hypothesis in two canid species using large samples that control for age- and sex-related variation. The samples involved radiographic images of 120 Portuguese water dogs Canis lupus familiaris and 121 Russian silver foxes Vulpes vulpes. Direct measurements were made of vocal tract length from X-ray images and compared against independent measures of body size. In adults of both species, and within both sexes, overall vocal tract length was strongly and...Continue Reading

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Citations

Feb 13, 2016·Journal of Anatomy·Kyle PlotskyTobias Riede
Apr 18, 2020·Journal of Morphology·Deanna FloresAdam Hartstone-Rose
Jun 18, 2016·Multisensory Research·Victoria F RatcliffeDavid Reby
Mar 2, 2018·Current Zoology·Andrea RavignaniBart de Boer
May 27, 2021·PloS One·Sabrina BettoniW Tecumseh Fitch
Jun 15, 2021·Journal of Mammalogy·Sabrina Nicolleta LinnMarina Scheumann

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