Communication at the Garden Fence – Context Dependent Vocalization in Female House Mice

Abstract

House mice (Mus musculus) live in social groups where they frequently interact with conspecifics, thus communication (e.g. chemical and/or auditory) is essential. It is commonly known that male and female mice produce complex vocalizations in the ultrasonic range (USV) that remind of high-pitched birdsong (so called mouse song) which is mainly used in social interactions. Earlier studies suggest that mice use their USVs for mate attraction and mate choice, but they could also be used as signal during hierarchy establishment and familiarization, or other communication purposes. In this study we elucidated the vocalization behaviour of interacting female mice over an extended period of time under semi-natural conditions. We asked, if the rate or structure of female vocalization differs between different social and non-social contexts. We found that female USV is mainly used in social contexts, driven by direct communication to an unknown individual, the rate of which is decreased over time by a familiarization process. In addition we could show that female mice use two distinct types of USVs, differing in their frequency, which they use differently depending on whether they directly or indirectly communicate with another female. This supports the notion that vocalization in mice is context dependent, driven by a reasonable and yet underestimated amount of complexity that also involves the interplay between different sensory signals, like chemical and auditory cues.

Quantitative trait locus mapping and analysis of heritable variation in affiliative social behavior and co‐occurring traits

“…Yet, because social approach precedes adult‐initiated partner sniffing, the lack of tighter correlation of these aspects of sociability across strains was somewhat unexpected. The expression of social behaviors depends importantly upon the interplay between the magnitude of internal social drives and the specific social (eg, age, sex, familiarity of the partner) and environmental (familiarity, safety, size) context . Thus, we suggest that rank‐order variation across tasks is likely because of important task differences, including differences in partner attributes (juvenile, adult), behavioral requirements (chamber exploration, presence of novel objects), and ethological relevance of behaviors (direct interaction vs restricted partner access).…”

Spontaneous social communication in laboratory mice - placing ultrasonic vocalizations in their behavioral context

“…We observed that USVs emitted during intense social interactions were longer, harsher, more modulated, and showed more frequency jumps than USVs emitted during non-social behaviors or at the end of social contacts (Figures 3-4). This is reminiscent of USVs emitted by wild house mice during social contact, which are longer than USVs emitted when standing alone (near a food spot, in the nest) (Hoier et al, 2016b).…”

“…An ethological approach to mouse social communication should provide behavioral observations in contexts closer to natural conditions in which the animals should also be less stressed (Peromyscus californicus, P. boylii: (Briggs and Kalcounis-Rueppell, 2011;Kalcounis-Rueppell et al, 2006; Mus musculus: (Hoier et al, 2016a)). Here, we provide a detailed description of the spontaneous behaviors (see Table I in the Methods section) that are synchronized with USVs during an undisturbed period of three days and nights ( Figure 1a) at three different ages (5 weeks and 3 and 7 months).…”

Early-Life Social Isolation Influences Mouse Ultrasonic Vocalizations during Male-Male Social Encounters

“…Furthermore, USVs including lower frequency (40–50 kHz) elements and frequency jumps are more attractive to female mice compared to USVs without these features [63]. The increasing numbers of studies reporting vocalizations between male-male and female-female mouse pairs suggests that vocalizations serve a social signaling role outside of opposite-sex interaction, however [45,61,62,64]. …”