Ultrasound from underground: cryptic communication in subterranean wild-living and captive northern mole voles (<i>Ellobius talpinus</i>)

Volodin, Ilya A.; Dymskaya, Margarita M.; Smorkatcheva, Antonina V.; Volodina, Elena V.

doi:10.1080/09524622.2021.1960191

Cited by 9 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…Ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) fulfill an important role in animal ecology as means of communication or navigation in many rodents ( Mahrt et al, 2013 ; Brudzynski, 2021 ; Zaytseva et al, 2019 ; Volodin et al, 2022 ; Murrant et al, 2013 ), bats ( Schnitzler et al, 2003 ), frogs ( Feng et al, 2006 ), cetaceans ( Mourlam and Orliac, 2017 ), and even some primates ( Bakker and Langermans, 2018 ; Ramsier et al, 2012 ). In many of these species, USVs have been shown to be present innately and to have significance at multiple stages of life, from neonates ( Kikusui et al, 2011 ) to adults ( Mahrt et al, 2013 ), often with diverse functions as distress/alarm calls ( Kikusui et al, 2011 ; Litvin et al, 2007 ), courtship signals ( Marconi et al, 2020 ), territorial defense signals ( Rieger and Marler, 2018 ), private communication ( Ramsier et al, 2012 ), and echolocation ( Schnitzler et al, 2003 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rodent ultrasonic vocal interaction resolved with millimeter precision using hybrid beamforming

Sterling

Teunisse

Englitz

2023

eLife

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Ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) fulfill an important role in communication and navigation in many species. Because of their social and affective significance, rodent USVs are increasingly used as a behavioral measure in neurodevelopmental and neurolinguistic research. Reliably attributing USVs to their emitter during close interactions has emerged as a difficult, key challenge. If addressed, all subsequent analyses gain substantial confidence. We present a hybrid ultrasonic tracking system, HyVL, that synergistically integrates a high-resolution acoustic camera with high-quality ultrasonic microphones. HyVL is the first to achieve millimeter precision (~3.4-4.8mm, 91% assigned) in localizing USVs, ~3x better than other systems, approaching the physical limits (mouse snout ~ 10mm). We analyze mouse courtship interactions and demonstrate that males and females vocalize in starkly different relative spatial positions, and that the fraction of female vocalizations has likely been overestimated previously due to imprecise localization. Further, we find that when two male mice interact with one female, one of the males takes a dominant role in the interaction both in terms of the vocalization rate and the location relative to the female. HyVL substantially improves the precision with which social communication between rodents can be studied. It is also affordable, open-source, easy to set up, can be integrated with existing setups, and reduces the required number of experiments and animals.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rodent ultrasonic vocal interaction resolved with millimeter precision using hybrid beamforming

Sterling

Teunisse

Englitz

2023

eLife

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“…Ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) fulfill an important role in animal ecology as means of communication or navigation in many rodents [1][2][3][4][5] , bats 6 , frogs 7 , cetaceans 8 , and even some primates. 9,10 In many of these species, USVs have been shown to be present innately and to have significance at multiple stages of life, from neonates 11 to adults 1 , often with diverse functions as distress/alarm calls 11,12 , courtship signals 13 , territorial defense signals 14 , private communication 10 , and echolocation 6 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rodent ultrasonic vocal interaction resolved with millimeter precision using hybrid beamforming

Sterling

Englitz

2023

Preprint

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Ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) fulfill an important role in communication and navigation in many species. Because of their social and affective significance, rodent USVs are increasingly used as a behavioral measure in neurodevelopmental and neurolinguistic research. Reliably attributing USVs to their emitter during close interactions has emerged as a difficult, key challenge. If addressed, all subsequent analyses gain substantial confidence. We present a hybrid ultrasonic tracking system, HyVL, that synergistically integrates a high-resolution acoustic camera with high-quality ultrasonic microphones. HyVL is the first to achieve millimeter precision (~3.4-4.8mm, 91% assigned) in localizing USVs, ~3x better than other systems, approaching the physical limits (mouse snout ~ 10mm). We analyze mouse courtship interactions and demonstrate that males and females vocalize in starkly different relative spatial positions, and that the fraction of female vocalizations has likely been overestimated previously due to imprecise localization. Further, we find that male mice vocalize more intensely when interacting with two mice, an effect mostly driven by the dominant male. HyVL substantially improves the precision with which social communication between rodents can be studied. It is also affordable, open-source, easy to set up, can be integrated with existing setups, and reduces the required number of experiments and animals.

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“…Indeed, many species produce high frequencies and a variety of USVs in closed habitats despite these calls being easily absorbed by the spatially complex habitat in which they are produced. Furthermore, a truly subterranean rodent, the mole vole ( Ellobius talpinus ), has been shown to produce ultrasonic vocalizations ( Volodin et al, 2022 ) despite the assumed acoustic restrictions of living underground, where acoustic signals are quickly absorbed by the dense surrounding environment. Therefore, while other researchers have predicted that open habitats may be more conducive to the evolution of USV production ( Boncoraglio & Saino, 2007 ; Ey & Fischer, 2009 ; Fischer, Wadewitz & Hammerschmidt, 2017 ), it may be that open habitats are better for recording USVs (as previously proposed by Newar & Bowman, 2020 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ultrasound and ultraviolet: crypsis in gliding mammals

Newar,

Schneiderová,

Hughes

et al. 2024

PeerJ

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Gliding is only present in six extant groups of mammals—interestingly, despite divergent evolutionary histories, all mammalian gliders are strictly nocturnal. Gliding mammals also seem to have relatively high rates of ultrasound use and ultraviolet-induced photoluminescence (UVP) in contrast with their close relatives. Therefore, we hypothesized that, despite diverging lineages, gliding mammals use similar modes of cryptic communication compared to their non-gliding counterparts. We developed two datasets containing the vocal range (minimum-maximum of the dominant harmonic; kHz) and UVP of 73 and 82 species, respectively; we report four novel vocal repertoires and 57 novel observations of the presence or absence of UVP. We complemented these datasets with information about body size, diel activity patterns, habitat openness, and sociality to explore possible covariates related to vocal production and UVP. We found that the maximum of the dominant harmonic was significant higher in gliding mammals when vocalizing than their non-gliding relatives. Additionally, we found that nocturnality was the only significant predictor of UVP, consistent with the previous hypothesis that luminophores primarily drive UVP in mammal fur. In contrast, however, we did not find UVP ubiquitous in nocturnal mammals, suggesting that some unknown process may contribute to variation in this trait.

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Ultrasound from underground: cryptic communication in subterranean wild-living and captive northern mole voles (Ellobius talpinus)

Cited by 9 publications

References 94 publications

Rodent ultrasonic vocal interaction resolved with millimeter precision using hybrid beamforming

Rodent ultrasonic vocal interaction resolved with millimeter precision using hybrid beamforming

Rodent ultrasonic vocal interaction resolved with millimeter precision using hybrid beamforming

Ultrasound and ultraviolet: crypsis in gliding mammals

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