THE EFFECT OF CHANGING CALL DURATION AND CALLING BOUTS ON VIGILANCE IN BRANTS' WHISTLING RAT, PAROTOMYS BRANTSII

Abstract The function of variation in single call duration and alarm calling bouts was investigated in Brants' whistling rat, Parotomys brantsii, by means of playback experiments and video analyses of the vigilance displayed. Short calls are produced in high-risk situations, and long calls in l...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Behaviour 2001-10, Vol.138 (10), p.1287-1302
Main Authors: Roux, Aliza Le, Jackson, Tim, Cherry, Michael
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Alarms
Animal communication
Animal vocalization
Animals
Biological and medical sciences
Ground squirrels
PLAYBACK EXPERIMENTS
Predators
Rats
Rodents
Roux
TONIC COMMUNICATION
URGENCY-BASED
VIGILANCE
Whistling
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Summary:Abstract The function of variation in single call duration and alarm calling bouts was investigated in Brants' whistling rat, Parotomys brantsii, by means of playback experiments and video analyses of the vigilance displayed. Short calls are produced in high-risk situations, and long calls in low-risk encounters, but these calls apparently do not communicate this variance in risk to conspecifics. Both short and long single calls induced heightened vigilance in receivers, but rats did not respond differentially to the two call types, and it was concluded that P.brantsii alarm calls are not functionally referential. Multiple calls maintained a state of increased alertness in receivers for a longer period than single calls, even after the bouts had ended, but long bouts (duration: 64 s) did not lead to longer periods of vigilance than short bouts (29 s). Thus the tonic communication hypothesis is only partially supported by our study.
ISSN:0005-7959
1568-539X
DOI:10.1163/15685390152822229