Abstract
Mammals use multiple sensory cues for mother-offspring recognition. While the role of single sensory cues has been well studied, we lack information about how multiple cues produced by mothers are integrated by their offspring. Knowing that Australian sea lion (Neophoca cinerea) pups recognise their mother’s calls, we first tested whether visual cues are used by pups to discriminate between conspecifics of different age classes (adult female vs pup). We then examined if adding a visual stimulus to an acoustic cue enhances vocal responsiveness of Australian sea lion pups, by presenting wild individuals with either a visual cue (female 3D-model), an acoustic cue (mother’s call), or both simultaneously, and observing their reaction. We showed that visual cues can be used by pups to distinguish adult females from other individuals, however we found no enhancement effect of these cues on the response in a multimodal scenario. Audio-only cues prompted a similar reaction to audio-visual cues that was significantly stronger than pup response to visual-only cues. Our results suggest that visual cues are dominated by acoustic cues and that pups rely on the latter in mother recognition.
Highlights
Animal communication can be extremely complex and may use multiple sensory modalities[1]
In this study we first test whether visual cues can be used by pups to discriminate among conspecifics and examine whether visual and acoustic cues induce a synergistic effect on the behavioural response of Australian sea lion pups during mother-pup reunion
We showed that visual cues can be used by sea lion pups to distinguish between pups and adult females
Summary
Animal communication can be extremely complex and may use multiple sensory modalities[1]. Multiple redundant cues may elicit either an equivalent or an enhanced response compared to a single cue, and non-redundant cues may be independent, cause dominance or modulation, or lead to the emergence of a new response[8] Because of these interactions, investigating how animals respond to multiple cues simultaneously is necessary, as it provides greater understanding about complex behaviour than looking at cues in isolation. Mother-offspring recognition is known to involve different and usually multiple modalities simultaneously, with acoustic, olfactory and visual cues playing varying roles for different mammalian species[10,11]. Observational studies exist for multiple species[32,33,34,35,36] extensive experimental work about recognition through different sensory modalities has been done only for the Australian sea lion (Neophoca cinerea). In this study we first test whether visual cues can be used by pups to discriminate among conspecifics (adult females vs pups) and examine whether visual and acoustic cues induce a synergistic effect on the behavioural response of Australian sea lion pups during mother-pup reunion
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
