Vocal discrimination of potential mates by female giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca)

Abstract

In the current study, we used male giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) bleats in a habituation-discrimination paradigm to determine whether females discriminate between the vocalizations of different males. We found that females habituated to the bleats of a specific male showed a significant dishabituation when they were presented with bleats from a novel male. Further playbacks, in which we standardized the mean fundamental frequency (pitch) and amplitude modulation of male bleats, indicated that amplitude modulation is the key feature that females attend to when discriminating between male callers. Our results show that female giant pandas can discriminate between the vocalizations of potential mates and provide a platform for further studies investigating the functional role of caller identity in giant panda sexual communication.

Cross-modal signaling in giant pandas

“…Giant panda male and female urine and male anogenital gland secretions contain information that allow individuals to discriminate age, gender and social status [34,[37][38][39][40][41]. We have a basic understanding of chemical signaling in giant pandas [37,38], and recent work on their vocal communications has raised the profile of this aspect of their sociality [23,25]. It is now clear that a great deal of information is coded in the bleats and chirps of giant pandas and ours is the first study to detect a chemical communication response, which was marking, to these auditory signals.…”

“…The issue of cross-modalities communication and mate choice is an evolving area of research, and even in highprofile species our understanding of these systems is poor. Recent work on giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) [23][24][25][26] has revealed that auditory communication is more complicated than previously believed. Giant pandas are solitary animals that produce 11 different vocalizations across a range of contexts, some of which change in rate and structure during periods of reproductive activity [27,28].…”

“…In addition, female giant panda chirps can signal their precise estrus state [24]. Experiments involving the playback of male calls to females has shown that female giant pandas can discriminate between the vocalizations of males and show preference to potential mates [23]. Male giant pandas can also perceive differences in female chirps and possibly also the time of female fertile phases [24].…”

“…Bleats and chirps are nonaggressive and affinitive calls predominately used in sexual attraction and the synchronization of estrus and mating in giant pandas [30][31][32][33]. Acoustic analysis has shown that bleats are individualized and may signal caller sex, age and body size [23]. In addition, female giant panda chirps can signal their precise estrus state [24].…”

Giant pandas attend to androgen-related variation in male bleats

“…Recent work has shown that male bleats contain information on the caller's identity and body size (Charlton et al 2009c, b), and that male and female giant pandas attend to this information (Charlton et al 2009a(Charlton et al , 2010b. In addition, the rate of fundamental frequency (F0) modulation in male giant panda bleats is positively correlated to male androgen levels (Charlton et al 2011); raising the possibility that male and female giant pandas could also make use of this information in reproductive contexts.…”