Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 277, Issue 1695, Pages 2747-2753Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2010.0467
Keywords
red deer; vocal communication; fundamental frequency; female mating preferences
Categories
Funding
- Nuffield
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Across vertebrates, the observation that lower-pitched vocalizations are typically associated with larger and/or higher quality males has lead to the widespread belief that inter-and intra-sexual selection will produce male calls with low fundamental frequencies (F0). Here we investigated the response of oestrous red deer hinds to playback of re-synthesized male roars characterized by either higher than average or lower than average F0. We found that hinds prefer higher rather than lower 'pitched' roars, providing, to our knowledge, the first evidence of such a bias in nonhuman mammals. Our findings can be interpreted in relation to previous observations that the minimum F0 of roars is positively correlated with male reproductive success in free-ranging red deer stags, and that across Cervids the F0 of male mating calls shows extreme variability. Females showing preferences for higher-pitched roars might derive genetic benefits through more competitive male offspring. Our results emphasize the need for further investigations of female preferences in mammals in order to better understand the extreme variation of F0 values observed in male sexual calls.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available