Abstract
In this study, we describe the acoustic structure of ultrasonic alarm calls of Mongolian gerbils Meriones unguiculatus in the wild and verify these calls as belonging to Mongolian gerbils by comparison of their acoustic parameters with alarm calls recorded in captivity. Both in captivity and in the wild, the alarm calls of Mongolian gerbils represented prolonged calls with an average duration of 118 ms and a flat contour and an average maximum fundamental frequency of 26.84 kHz. We found that alarm calls of captive Mongolian gerbils were shorter and higher in fundamental frequency and followed in a quicker succession than in the wild. Although the dataset size is not sufficient to determine significant acoustic variation between the populations, we discuss the potential reasons of the acoustic differences between the ultrasonic alarm calls produced in the wild and in captivity in our study and between the alarm calls reported in literature for different captive populations. We propose a method for non-invasive estimation of occupancy of the burrows by Mongolian gerbils in fragmented colonies at very low population density, by presence of the ultrasonic alarm calls.
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Data availability
Audio file with ultrasonic alarm calls is included in this published article as supplementary file. Additional raw data will be available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
We thank S.R. Sapozhnikova for her help and support during data collection. We thank Daursky State Nature Biosphere Reserve for help and support. We thank two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments thoroughly contributed to the improvements of the first version of manuscript. The study was conducted according to the ASAB/ABS ‘Guidelines for the ethical treatment of nonhuman animals in behavioural research and teaching’ (Animal Behaviour, 2023, 195, I-XI). Acoustic recording in captivity was the part of the research program of the Small Mammals Department of Moscow Zoo. One author is zoo staff member, so no special permission was required to work with laboratory animals in Moscow Zoo. The recordings were aimed for evaluating potential ultrasonic noise pollution in small mammal expositions and accompanied routine zoo management (inspection of breeding activity and animal health before regular cage cleaning); no additional actions specially for the needs of this research was applied. All recordings in the wild were purely observational.
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IAV and EVV contributed to the study conception and designed the methodology; IAV, VEK, OGI and EVV collected the data in captivity and in the wild; AVK performed data analyses and designed the figures. All authors contributed critically to the drafts and gave final approval for publication.
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42991_2024_416_MOESM1_ESM.wav
Audio file (sampling frequency 256 kHz) of ultrasonic alarm calls of Mongolian gerbils recorded in captivity from two different captive family groups accompanied by podophony, and in the wild from two different wild colonies
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Volodin, I.A., Klenova, A.V., Kirilyuk, V.E. et al. Ultrasonic alarm call of Mongolian gerbils (Meriones ungiuculatus) in the wild and in captivity: a potential tool for detecting inhabited colonies during population depression. Mamm Biol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42991-024-00416-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42991-024-00416-4