The importance of individual variation in the alarm calls of Gunnison's prairie dogs
2019
Loughry, W.J. | Oeser, Mariah | Anderson, Corey Devin | Hoogland, John L.
Gunnison's prairie dogs, Cynomys gunnisoni, frequently utter a repetitive series (a ‘bout’) of alarm calls (called ‘barks’) in response to a variety of terrestrial predators. Previous work has suggested that the structure of barks is finely tuned in ways that provide highly specific information about the identity of the predator. We re-evaluated these findings by presenting individually marked adult females with taxidermy mounts of three terrestrial predators of prairie dogs: a coyote, Canis latrans, a bobcat, Lynx rufus, and an American badger, Taxidea taxus, as well as one control stimulus (a cardboard box). Significant variation among individuals was evident from analyses of 10 measures associated with the general pattern of barking (e.g. latency to begin barking, bout duration, average number of barks/bout, overall bark rate, interbout interval) and also from eight structural features of individual barks (e.g. frequency and duration measures of the fundamental frequency band). When controlling for the identity of alarm callers, we found little evidence for differences in these same variables in response to different stimuli. We conclude that, like several other species of ground-dwelling squirrels, Gunnison's prairie dogs have an individually distinctive alarm call that does not differ for different predators. Our results conflict with earlier claims of extreme specificity in the alarm calls of Gunnison's prairie dogs.
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