Scared and less noisy: glucocorticoids are associated with alarm call entropy
Scared and less noisy: glucocorticoids are associated with alarm call entropy
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DOI：
10.1098/rsbl.2011.0832
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发表时间：
2012-04-23
期刊：
影响因子：
3.3
通讯作者：
Chi, Yvonne Y.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Blumstein, Daniel T.;Chi, Yvonne Y.
非线性和唤醒假说预测，高度唤醒的哺乳动物将产生非线性、嘈杂的叫声。我们通过测量成年黄腹旱鼠（Marmota flavventris）粪便中的糖皮质激素代谢物（GCMs）来验证这一预测，并询问GCMs的变化是否与维纳熵（Wiener entropy，一种噪声测量方法）呈正相关。与我们的预测相反，我们发现了一个显著的负相关关系：与那些gcm水平较低的土拨鼠相比，粪便中gcm含量较高的土拨鼠发出的叫声噪音更小。先前的一项研究表明，糖皮质激素可以调节土拨鼠发出叫声的可能性。这项研究表明，像其他一些物种一样，高度兴奋的个体发出的叫声不那么嘈杂。因此，糖皮质激素在警报信号的产生中起着重要的作用，但未被充分认识。
The nonlinearity and arousal hypothesis predicts that highly aroused mammals will produce nonlinear, noisy vocalizations. We tested this prediction by measuring faecal glucocorticoid metabolites (GCMs) in adult yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventris), and asking if variation in GCMs was positively correlated with Wiener entropy-a measure of noise. Contrary to our prediction, we found a significant negative relationship: marmots with more faecal GCMs produced calls with less noise than those with lower levels of GCMs. A previous study suggested that glucocorticoids modulate the probability that a marmot will emit a call. This study suggests that, like some other species, calls emitted from highly aroused individuals are less noisy. Glucocorticoids thus play an important, yet underappreciated role, in alarm call production.