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First published online October 31, 2008
Journal of Experimental Biology 211, 3554-3562 (2008)
Published by The Company of Biologists 2008
doi: 10.1242/jeb.016055
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Mother–young vocal communication and acoustic recognition promote preferential nursing in sheep

Frédéric Sèbe1,2,*, Thierry Aubin2, Amélie Boué1 and Pascal Poindron1

1 Equipe Comportement, Neurobiologie Adaptation, Unite de Physiologie de la Reproduction et des Comportements UMR 6175 CNRS INRA Universite de Tours Haras Nationaux, 37380 Nouzilly, France
2 Equipe Communications Acoustiques, NAMC CNRS UMR 8620, Université Paris-Sud, Bât. 446, 91405 Orsay Cedex, France


Figure 1
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  		Fig. 1. Schematic representation of the experimental protocol for the study of vocal exchanges between ewes and their lambs from parturition to day 15 postpartum. (A) Representation of 3 h observation periods from lambing to day 15 postpartum. (B) Representation of 2.5 min time-window analyses of focal sampling in relation to a nursing event.

 

Figure 2
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  		Fig. 2. Spectrograms (b), oscillograms (a) and mean spectrum (c) of the two studied and used calls in the playback experiment: (A) high-pitched bleats of mothers and (B) high-pitched bleats of lambs (window size: 512 points, overlap: 87.5%).

 

Figure 3
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  		Fig. 3. Box-plot representation of vocal activity of ewe–lamb dyads (medians, lower and upper quartile) during 2.5 min observation windows, from 2 days before parturition (ewes only) to 15 days postpartum at the time of nursing. Vocal activity (A) at 0–3 h postpartum, (B) at 3–6 h postpartum, (C) at 24 h postpartum, and (D) at 15 days after lambing. (Friedman tests followed by Wilcoxon signed-ranks tests for pair-wise comparisons with Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons t: P<0.1; *P<0.05; **P<0.01.)

 

Figure 4
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  		Fig. 4. Proportion of the vocalisations of ewes and lambs during the 2.5 min observation window just preceding nursing, relative to the total number of vocalisations emitted during the five 2.5 min observation windows in the 30 min before nursing (Wilcoxon test: *P<0.05). Note that at 3–6 h postpartum, vocal activity is already significantly more concentrated just before suckling than in the first 3 h postpartum, and this continues to increase over time (main effect of time, Friedman test: N=8, d.f.=5, P<0.018).

 

Figure 5
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  		Fig. 5. Responses of ewes (A) and lambs (B) to the playback of vocalisations from an alien or own lamb or an alien versus own mother, respectively, 30 or 5 min after suckling (Wilcoxon test: **P<0.01, ***P<0.001). Significantly different values are marked with different letters.

 

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© The Company of Biologists Ltd 2008