Ontogenetic variation of heritability and maternal effects in yellow-bellied marmot alarm calls

Abstract

Individuals of many species produce distinctive vocalizations that may relay potential information about the signaller. The alarm calls of some species have been reported to be individually specific, and this distinctiveness may allow individuals to access the reliability or kinship of callers. While not much is known generally about the heritability of mammalian vocalizations, if alarm calls were individually distinctive to permit kinship assessment, then call structure should be heritable. Here, we show conclusively for the first time that alarm call structure is heritable. We studied yellow-bellied marmots ( Marmota flaviventris ) and made nine quantitative measurements of their alarm calls. With a known genealogy, we used the animal model (a statistical technique) to estimate alarm call heritability. In juveniles, only one of the measured variables had heritability significantly different from zero; however, most variables had significant maternal environmental effects. By contrast, yearlings and adults had no significant maternal environmental effects, but the heritability of nearly all measured variables was significantly different from zero. Some, but not all of these heritable effects were significantly different across age classes. The presence of significantly non-zero maternal environmental effects in juveniles could reflect the impact of maternal environmental stresses on call structure. Regardless of this mechanism, maternal environmental effects could permit kinship recognition in juveniles. In older animals, the substantial genetic basis of alarm call structure suggests that calls could be used to assess kinship and, paradoxically, might also suggest a role of learning in call structure.

Heritability and genetic correlations of personality traits in a wild population of yellow‐bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventris)

“…Similarly to previous studies (Réale et al ., ; Taylor et al ., ), we found that permanent environment effects are present for these traits suggesting that the consistent environment potentially plays an equally important role in accounting for phenotypic variation as the underlying genes (see also Blumstein et al ., ). Female marmots are philopatric (Armitage, ) and experience the same environment throughout life.…”

Born to Cry: A Genetic Dissection of Infant Vocalization

“…Acoustic characteristics such as fundamental frequency and sound amplitude, have different effects on parental care ( Lingle et al, 2012 ), and we therefore expect that these characteristics have different heritabilities ( Gustafsson, 1986 ; Price and Schluter, 1991 ; Branchi et al, 2001 ; Thornton et al, 2005 ). A low heritability usually indicates intense neutralizing selection, whereas high heritabilities are often associated with phenotypes that either do not greatly affect fitness (relaxed selection) or that are controlled by balancing selection ( Walsh and Lynch, 2018 ) that increases variability, perhaps in order to enhance kin and litter recognition ( Forstmeier et al, 2009 ; Blumstein et al, 2013 ). Hahn et al (1997) hypothesized that rates of calling has undergone more intense selection than other characters ( Hahn et al, 1997 ), however Spence et al (2016) have shown that acoustic characteristics usually do not change in isolation but are highly interrelated ( Spence et al, 2016 ).…”

Modeling the origins of mammalian sociality: moderate evidence for matrilineal signatures in mouse lemur vocalizations

“…To date, much of the attention that has been given to investigating matrilineal signatures in mammalian vocalizations has focused on social species (ie. goats [ 8 , 9 ], meerkats [ 10 ], marmots [ 11 ], sperm whales and killer whales [ 12 - 14 ], bats [ 15 - 17 ] and the socially variable house mouse [ 18 , 19 ]). Much less has been done on solitary species (i.e., pandas [ 20 ]).…”