Abstract
Among Gerbillinae rodents, ultrasonic calls of adults of small-sized species are typically higher frequency than those of adults of large-sized species. This study investigates whether a similar relationship can be found in pups of six gerbil species (Dipodillus campestris, Gerbillus perpallidus, Meriones unguiculatus, Meriones vinogradovi, Sekeetamys calurus and Pachyuromys duprasi). We compared the average values of acoustic variables (duration, fundamental and peak frequency) of ultrasonic calls (20 calls per pup, 1200 in total) recorded from 6- to 10-day-old pups (10 pups per species, 60 in total) isolated for 2 min at 22°C and then weighed and measured for body variables. The longest calls (56 ± 33 ms) were found in the largest species, and the highest frequency calls (74.8 ± 5.59 kHz) were found in the smallest species. However, across species, call duration (ranging from 56 to 159 ms among species) did not display a significant relationship with pup body size; and, among frequency variables, only the minimum fundamental frequency depended on pup body size. Discriminant analysis assigned 100% of calls to the correct species. The effect of species identity on the acoustics was stronger than the effect of body size. We discuss these results with the hypotheses of acoustic adaptation, social complexity, hearing ranges and phylogeny.
Highlights
Gerbils or jirds (Rodentia, Gerbillinae) are a subfamily comprising approximately 15 genera with 81 species of small desert royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rsos R
The precise age of subject 6–10-day-old pups on the dates of their experimental trials did not differ between species, excluding Pachyuromys duprasi, which were significantly older than Meriones vinogradovi or Seeketamus calurus pups
The fourth and fifth discriminant functions described only 2.89% of the variance. This comparative study revealed that 6–10-day-old pups of six Gerbillinae species were different in body size and in the acoustic traits of their isolation-induced ultrasonic calls
Summary
Gerbils or jirds (Rodentia, Gerbillinae) are a subfamily comprising approximately 15 genera with 81 species of small desert royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rsos R. Many species of gerbils have been kept in captivity [3,20,21,28], and some of them serve as wild-type (i.e. not genetically modified or selected for behaviour) animal models for biomedical research [28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44]. Adult gerbils, depending on species, are known to vocalize in the ultrasonic range of frequencies, e.g. most South African gerbils [27]; or in the audible range of frequencies, e.g. Middle Asian great gerbils Rhombomys opimus [45,46,47,48], Egyptian pale gerbils Gerbillus perpallidus [46] and Namibian dune hairyfooted gerbils Gerbillurus tytonis [3]. Some species vocalize in both audible and ultrasonic ranges, e.g. Mongolian gerbils Meriones unguiculatus [49,50], Egyptian fat-tailed gerbils Pachyuromys duprasi [25,51,52] and Tunisian fat sand rats Psammomys obesus [25]
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