科创中国

Fear?and?anxiety?may?be?adaptive?responses?to?life-threatening?situations,?and?animals?may?communicate?fear?to?others?vocally.?A?fundamental?understanding?of?fear?inducing?sounds?is?important?for?both?wildlife?conservation?and?management?because?it?helps?us?understand?how?to?design?repellents?and?also?how?(and?why)?animals?may?be?negatively?impacted?by?anthropogenic?sounds.?Nonlinear?phenomena--sounds?produced?by?the?desynchronization?of?vibrations?in?a?sound?production?system-are?commonly?found?in?stress-induced?animal?vocalizations,?such?as?in?alarm?calls,?mobbing?calls,?and?fear?screams.?There?are?several?functional?hypotheses?for?these?nonlinear?phenomena.?One?specific?hypothesis?is?the?unpredictability?hypothesis,?which?suggests?that?because?nonlinear?phenomena?are?more?variable?and?somewhat?unpredictable,?animals?are?less?likely?to?habituate?to?them.?Animals?should,?therefore,?have?a?prolonged?response?to?sounds?with?nonlinear?phenomena?than?sounds?without?them.?Most?of?the?studies?involving?nonlinear?phenomena?have?used?mammalian?subjects?and?conspecific?stimuli.?Our?study?fo-?cused?on?white-crowned?sparrows?(Zonotrichia?leucophrys?ssp.?oriantha)?and?used?synthesized?acoustic?stimuli?to?investigate?behavioral?responses?to?stimuli?with?and?without?nonlinear?phenomena.?We?predicted?that?birds?would?be?less?relaxed?after?hearing?a?stimulus?with?a?nonlinear?component.?We?calculated?the?difference?from?baseline?of?proportion?of?time?spent?in?relaxed?behaviors?and?performed?pair-wise?comparisons?between?a?pure?tone?control?stimulus?and?each?of?three?experimental?stimuli,?including?a?frequency?jump?up,?a?frequency?jump?down,?and?white?noise.?These?comparisons?showed?that?in?the?30q50?s?after?the?playback?experiment,?birds?were?significantly?less?relaxed?after?hearing?noise?or?an?abrupt?frequency?jump?down?an?octave?but?not?an?abrupt?frequency?jump?up?an?octave?or?a?pure?tone.?Nonlinear?phenomena,?therefore,?may?be?generally?arousing?to?animals?and?may?explain?why?these?acoustic?properties?are?commonly?fou