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The evolution of acoustic size exaggeration in terrestrial mammals
Recent studies have revealed that some mammals possess adaptations that enable them to produce vocal signals with much lower fundamental frequency (F0) and formant frequency spacing (ΔF) than expected for their size. Although these adaptations are assumed to reflect selection pressures for males to...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group
2016
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5025854/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27598835 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms12739 |
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author | Charlton, Benjamin D. Reby, David |
author_facet | Charlton, Benjamin D. Reby, David |
author_sort | Charlton, Benjamin D. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Recent studies have revealed that some mammals possess adaptations that enable them to produce vocal signals with much lower fundamental frequency (F0) and formant frequency spacing (ΔF) than expected for their size. Although these adaptations are assumed to reflect selection pressures for males to lower frequency components and exaggerate body size in reproductive contexts, this hypothesis has not been tested across a broad range of species. Here we show that male terrestrial mammals produce vocal signals with lower ΔF (but not F0) than expected for their size in mating systems with greater sexual size dimorphism. We also reveal that males produce calls with higher than expected F0 and ΔF in species with increased sperm competition. This investigation confirms that sexual selection favours the use of ΔF as an acoustic size exaggerator and supports the notion of an evolutionary trade-off between pre-copulatory signalling displays and sperm production. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5025854 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-50258542016-09-23 The evolution of acoustic size exaggeration in terrestrial mammals Charlton, Benjamin D. Reby, David Nat Commun Article Recent studies have revealed that some mammals possess adaptations that enable them to produce vocal signals with much lower fundamental frequency (F0) and formant frequency spacing (ΔF) than expected for their size. Although these adaptations are assumed to reflect selection pressures for males to lower frequency components and exaggerate body size in reproductive contexts, this hypothesis has not been tested across a broad range of species. Here we show that male terrestrial mammals produce vocal signals with lower ΔF (but not F0) than expected for their size in mating systems with greater sexual size dimorphism. We also reveal that males produce calls with higher than expected F0 and ΔF in species with increased sperm competition. This investigation confirms that sexual selection favours the use of ΔF as an acoustic size exaggerator and supports the notion of an evolutionary trade-off between pre-copulatory signalling displays and sperm production. Nature Publishing Group 2016-09-06 /pmc/articles/PMC5025854/ /pubmed/27598835 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms12739 Text en Copyright © 2016, The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
spellingShingle | Article Charlton, Benjamin D. Reby, David The evolution of acoustic size exaggeration in terrestrial mammals |
title | The evolution of acoustic size exaggeration in terrestrial mammals |
title_full | The evolution of acoustic size exaggeration in terrestrial mammals |
title_fullStr | The evolution of acoustic size exaggeration in terrestrial mammals |
title_full_unstemmed | The evolution of acoustic size exaggeration in terrestrial mammals |
title_short | The evolution of acoustic size exaggeration in terrestrial mammals |
title_sort | evolution of acoustic size exaggeration in terrestrial mammals |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5025854/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27598835 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms12739 |
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