Abstract
We investigated the possibility that stallion whinnies, known to encode caller size, also encoded information about caller arousal and fertility, and the reactions of mares in relation to type of voice. Voice acoustic features are correlated with arousal and reproduction success, the lower-pitched the stallion’s voice, the slower his heart beat and the higher his fertility. Females from three study groups preferred playbacks of low-pitched voices. Hence, females are attracted by frequencies encoding for large male size, calmness and high fertility. More work is needed to explore the relative importance of morpho-physiological features. Assortative mating may be involved as large females preferred voices of larger stallions. Our study contributes to basic and applied ongoing research on mammal reproduction, and questions the mechanisms used by females to detect males’ fertility.
Highlights
Vocal communication is primordially important in the daily social life of a large number of mammal species
Just by hearing a given voice, some mammals, including humans, are able to assess their degree of familiarity with the caller (e.g. Campbell’s monkeys [1], Asian smallclawed otters [2]), its size, and its identity
Reproductive success was consistent between insemination (IS) and survival success (SS) data (Table 3)
Summary
Vocal communication is primordially important in the daily social life of a large number of mammal species. Just by hearing a given voice, some mammals, including humans, are able to assess their degree of familiarity with the caller (e.g. Campbell’s monkeys [1], Asian smallclawed otters [2]), its size (e.g. red deer [3], koalas [4], giant pandas [5]), and its identity (e.g. olive baboons [6], Atlantic walrus [7]). Auditory decoding capacities concerning internal characteristics of callers have been demonstrated. Humans can reliably estimate the age of a speaker just by his/her voice characteristics [10]. One of the main functions of vocal signals is to coordinate interactions between conspecifics. The application of the source—filter theory has enabled researchers to decompose the acoustic structure of vocal signals according to their mode of production and to predict the acoustic variation that is caused by anatomical or physiological
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