Dissertation Research: Development of Alarm-Call Response Behavior

小行星9311508 警报呼叫是由捕食者引起的声音，可以提醒物种的其他成员即将发生的危险。 报警呼叫只有在它们得到适当的回应时才有功能价值。 Ms. Jill M. Mateo的博士论文研究旨在确定幼Belding地松鼠对警报呼叫的反应何时以及如何发展，因为她的试验数据显示，当幼地松鼠首次从出生的洞穴中出现时，警报呼叫反应并没有完全发展。 马特奥女士将测试三个关于听觉经验和社会环境对警报呼叫反应发展的相对重要性的预测：（1）断奶前母亲的发声经验有助于断奶后的年轻人区分警报呼叫;（2）断奶后报警呼叫反应的发展通过观察成年报警呼叫反应而得到社会促进，和（3）如果少年在其他响应个体在场的情况下重复听到报警呼叫，则其报警呼叫响应的质量迅速提高。 这些预测将通过回放报警电话的录音带和记录未断奶幼犬的心脏反应以及在半自然环境中或生活在野外的青少年的行为反应进行测试。 研究结果将有助于解释社会影响如何促进关键生存技能的发展，并将促进我们对行为如何通过有机体与其一生中遇到的一系列环境之间紧密交织的相互作用而发展的理解。

9311508 Holmes Alarm calls are vocalizations elicited by predators that can alert other members of the species to impending danger. Alarm calls have functional value only if they are responded to appropriately for the type of predator. Ms. Jill M. Mateo's doctoral-dissertation research seeks to determine when and how responses to alarm calls develop in young Belding's ground squirrels, as her pilot data show that alarm-call responses are not fully developed when young ground squirrels first emerge from the burrow where they were born. Ms. Mateo will test three predictions about the relative importance of auditory experience and social context for the development of alarm-call responses: (1) experience with the mother's vocalizations before weaning helps the young to discriminate alarm calls after weaning; (2) development of alarm-call responses after weaning is socially facilitated by observing adult alarm-call responses, and (3) the quality of juvenile alarm-call responses improves rapidly if they repeatedly hear alarm calls in the presence of other responding individuals. These predictions will be tested by playing back tape-recordings of alarm calls and recording the cardiac responses of unweaned pups and the behavioral responses of juveniles housed in a semi-natural environment or living in the field. Results will help explain how social influences contribute to the development of a critical survival skill, and will advance our understanding of how behavior develops through tightly-woven interactions between the organism and the series of environments it encounters throughout its life.