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Stability of acoustic individuality in the alarm calls of wild yellow ground squirrels Spermophilus fulvus and contrasting calls from trapped and free-ranging callers

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Abstract

The questions of individuality and stability of cues to identity in vocal signals are of considerable importance from theoretical and conservation perspectives. While individuality in alarm calls has been reported for many sciurids, it is not well-documented that the vocal identity encoded in the alarm calls is stable between different encounters with predators. Previous studies of two obligate hibernating rodents, speckled ground squirrels Spermophilus suslicus, and yellow ground squirrels Spermophilus fulvus demonstrated that, after hibernation, most individuals could not be identified reliably by their alarm calls. Moreover, in most speckled ground squirrels, individual patterns of alarm calls changed progressively over as little as 2 weeks. However, these previous data have been obtained using the collection of alarm calls from trapped animals. Here, we examined ten free-ranging dye-marked yellow ground squirrels to determine whether their alarm calls retain the cues to individuality between two encounters of surrogate predators (humans), separated on average by 3 days. Discriminant function analysis showed that the alarm calls of individual yellow ground squirrels were very similar within a recording session, providing very high individual distinctiveness. However, in six of the ten animals, the alarm calls were unstable between recording sessions. Also, we examined ten dye-marked individuals for consistency of acoustic characteristics of their alarm calls between the encounters of humans, differing in techniques of call collection, from free-ranging vs trapped animals. We found differences only in two variables, both related to sound degradation in the environment. Data are discussed in relation to hypotheses explaining the adaptive utility of acoustic individuality in alarm calls.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Prof. S.A. Shilova, Dr. A.V. Tchabovsky, L.E. Savinetskaya, and N.S. Vasiliev for help with data collection. We are sincerely grateful to Dr. A.A. Lisovsky and Dr. V.S. Lebedev for help with statistics and to the four anonymous reviewers for their detailed and encouraging comments and for the correction of English. We are sincerely grateful to Stephen Pollard for his courteous and most helpful corrections of writing and language at the final stage of the revision of the manuscript. During our work, we adhered to the “Guidelines for the treatment of animals in behavioral research and teaching” (Anim. Behav., 2006, 71:245–253) and to the laws of Russian Federation, the country where the research was conducted. This study was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research grants 09-04-00416 (for V.M., I.V., and E.V) and 08-04-00507 (for N.V.), and Russian Science Support Foundation (for N.V).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Vertebrate Zoology, Faculty of Biology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Vorobievy Gory, 12/1, Moscow, 119991, Russia

    Vera A. Matrosova & Ilya A. Volodin

  2. Scientific Research Department, Moscow Zoo, B. Gruzinskaya, 1, Moscow, 123242, Russia

    Ilya A. Volodin & Elena V. Volodina

  3. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninsky pr., 33, Moscow, 119071, Russia

    Nina A. Vasilieva

Authors
  1. Vera A. Matrosova
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  2. Ilya A. Volodin
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  3. Elena V. Volodina
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  4. Nina A. Vasilieva
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Correspondence to Ilya A. Volodin.

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Movie of a juvenile female yellow ground squirrel producing a few clusters of alarm calls toward a human. Black “collar” is a dye mark. (MPG 8748 kb)

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Matrosova, V.A., Volodin, I.A., Volodina, E.V. et al. Stability of acoustic individuality in the alarm calls of wild yellow ground squirrels Spermophilus fulvus and contrasting calls from trapped and free-ranging callers. Naturwissenschaften 97, 707–715 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-010-0686-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-010-0686-7

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