Prey Module 2

Structure: Deer Mating Calls

How do deer communicate during the rutting season? When scientists ask proximate questions about the mechanisms of behavior, it is as if they zoom in to look at individuals in terms of their genotypes. They ask about the structure of the call in terms of the information conveyed between sender and receiver. They try to tease out which aspects of behavior are heritable, such as the high pitched bugle of elk and the low pitched roar of the red deer. They ask how those behaviors change with age and note that the call of a small calf is higher pitch than that of an adult female in both elk and red deer. In adult elk and red deer, the call of females is higher pitch than male calls. When a young male reaches puberty, the pitch of the call drops and with maturity, grunts are added onto the end of the call note. These are clues as to how reproductive hormones influence both the shape and size of the larynx, and the probability that individuals produce the mating call.

Learning Objectives:

• Distinguish between cause and development perspectives used to identify testable proximate hypotheses about body language of deer.
• Identify behavior units described as states and events in an ethogram for the species
• Integrate information from observations and sources to present the evidence available to test proximate hypotheses about deer behavior.

Background:

Recently, scientists are examining in more depth the type of information that is conveyed in the mating call of elk and red deer. Ask your instructor for a list of references.

To encourage you to learn more about this topic, we recommend starting with these links. Next, we invite you to explore some of the links that look interesting to you on this list of background information, so you are aware of the available information that otherwise might be hard to find.

• Background Information for Students [online] [printable pdf]
• Brief ethogram of red deer [printable pdf]
• Illustrated ethogram with links to videos [microsoft excel workbook]
• Ethogram Tips | pdf |

Activities:

Jump right in and learn by doing! You may choose to download this module and save it on your computer so that you can work off-line. You may print it and write on it with a pencil, or use the tools in the most recent Adobe Reader (9: typewriter tool; 8: advanced text tool) to write directly on the pdf file on your computer. If you are having problems with videos, some folks find the VLC player works well. If you are familiar with spreadsheets, you may choose to download the entire curriculum and use the Excel Workbook.

• Module 2 [printable pdf]
• Video [albums]
• Entire Prey Curriculum [microsoft excel workbook]

<<Previous module | Next module>>