Multimodal signalling in an antelope: fluctuating facemasks and knee-clicks reveal the social status of eland bulls
Multimodal signalling in an antelope: fluctuating facemasks and knee-clicks reveal the social status of eland bulls
复制标题
DOI：
10.1016/j.anbehav.2015.01.027
复制
发表时间：
2015-04-01
期刊：
影响因子：
2.5
通讯作者：
Beeston, Joshua
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Bro-Jorgensen, Jakob;Beeston, Joshua
地位徽章的进化对动物交流理论提出了挑战，因为没有明显的生产成本可以阻止低质量的个体作弊。在哺乳动物中，视觉状态徽章的证据仍然很罕见，迄今为止大多数例子都在鸟类中发现。在这里，我们报告说，在男性羚羊，羚羊的面部表情的剧烈波动，可靠地表明两个方面的社会地位：在所有男性畜群的优势和获得配偶作为主公牛在混合性别畜群。这一发现表明，视觉地位徽章在哺乳动物中的分布可能比迄今为止所认识的更为广泛，特别是在具有复杂社会系统的类群中。高频率的膝击声解释了男性社会地位的额外变化。支持作为身体大小指标的功能，峰值点击频率反过来取决于身体深度和面罩黑暗度，后者可能与睾酮水平有关，因此肌肉发育。赘肉的大小反映了所有男性畜群的优势，但不掌握公牛地位的混合性别畜群，并控制年龄的影响后，没有与社会地位的联系。因此，是否有蹄动物的主要功能是在沟通或更确切地说，在体温调节仍然是一个悬而未决的问题。(C)2015作者由爱思唯尔有限公司代表动物行为研究协会出版。
The evolution of status badges presents a challenge to animal communication theory because no obvious production costs prevent low-quality individuals from cheating. From mammals, evidence of visual status badges remains rare with most examples to date found in birds. Here we report that drastic fluctuations in the facial ornamentation of male eland antelope, Tragelaphus oryx, reliably indicated two aspects of social status: dominance in all-male herds and access to mates as the master bull in mixed-sex herds. The finding suggests that visual status badges may be more widespread in mammals than hitherto recognized, especially in taxa with complex social systems. The peak frequency of loud knee-clicks explained additional variation in male social status. Supporting a function as a body size indicator, the peak click frequency was in turn dependent on body depth and facemask darkness, the latter possibly related to testosterone levels and hence muscle development. Dewlap size reflected dominance in all-male herds but not master bull status in mixed-sex herds and, after controlling for the effect of age, no link with social status remained. Thus whether the primary function of the ungulate dewlap is in communication or rather in thermoregulation is still an open question. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published on behalf of The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour by Elsevier Ltd.