Giant panda mothers can discriminate own neonates from others based on their squalls

Abstract

Background & Aim: In many group-living mammal species, mothers can recognize calls from their own offspring, but little research has been done in solitary species. The giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) is a solitary species, yet there is high competition for breeding dens and an overlap in giant panda territory. Competition between pregnant giant panda females for denning becomes strained in the wild because the availability of old tree caves has decreased in recent years. Giant panda neonates are highly altricial, weighing little more than 0.1% of the adult weight, and rely on constant maternal care for growth and survival. To elicit maternal care, 0-45-day old neonates use vocalizations to express distress and their physiological needs. Here, we use the giant panda as a model to investigate if mothers can discriminate calls of their own cubs from those of other cubs. Methods: In this study, we first investigated if neonate squalls have the potential of encoding an individual-specific acoustic signature, and then examined whether mothers can discriminate squalls of their own from all other neonates byplaying the audio recordings of their squalls to the mothers.Results: Analyzing results based on 274 call samples from six cubs revealed that 14 out of 17 analyzed acoustic parameters of squalls have the potential for individual identity coding (PIC > 1), indicating a potential of an individual acoustic signature. Further discriminant analysis revealed that 78.5% of the squalls were correctly paired to the calling individual. The playback experiments demonstrated that mothers responded to squalls of their own neonates significantly more frequently than to squalls of other neonates (P = 0.008), indicating that mothers can identify their own offspring from their squalls. Conclusions:The squall calls of newborn pandas likely encode an individual acoustic signature, and panda mothers can distinguish the acoustic structure of squalls of their own neonates from that of other cubs. The results of this study provide valuable insights for the ex-situ conservation and breeding management of giant pandas in captivity and are conducive to improving the survival rate of giant panda cubs in captivity.