Advances in ethological approaches to explore rodent vocal communication
Vocal communication is widespread across animals, from mammals to amphibians. In recent years, rodents have become an increasingly valuable group in which to study vocal communication. Rodents offer rich opportunities to examine vocalizations from proximate and ultimate ethological perspectives. Her...
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2025-08-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Ethology |
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| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fetho.2025.1563374/full |
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| author | Ali Abud Ali Abud Yihan Wang Yihan Wang Yihan Wang Rechuma Hafter Ehsan Tavakoli Christina Wu Senadee Atapattu Ahmed Raza Mohammad Ali Ali Al-Hadi Hamza Khalid Rehmat K. Sukhija Tobias Stoodley Alisha Joshi Samar Joshi Samar Joshi Morgan L. Gustison |
| author_facet | Ali Abud Ali Abud Yihan Wang Yihan Wang Yihan Wang Rechuma Hafter Ehsan Tavakoli Christina Wu Senadee Atapattu Ahmed Raza Mohammad Ali Ali Al-Hadi Hamza Khalid Rehmat K. Sukhija Tobias Stoodley Alisha Joshi Samar Joshi Samar Joshi Morgan L. Gustison |
| author_sort | Ali Abud |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Vocal communication is widespread across animals, from mammals to amphibians. In recent years, rodents have become an increasingly valuable group in which to study vocal communication. Rodents offer rich opportunities to examine vocalizations from proximate and ultimate ethological perspectives. Here, we identify recent advances in ethological research on rodent vocal communication by synthesizing contemporary studies from the past decade. We carried out a scoping review of research published between 2014 and 2024. This review involved a broad search for peer-reviewed primary research studies in APA PsycINFO, Embase, MEDLINE, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science databases. The search yielded 403 eligible studies on rodent vocalizations. We extracted information about the ethological perspectives, species, research environment, and animal sex and age groups. We also identified studies that focused on method development. We found that rodent vocal communication studies varied across ethological perspectives, with more studies carried out on vocal mechanisms and adaptive functions than on development and evolution. These studies covered a broad range of 88 rodent species, with high species diversity in function and evolution studies and low species diversity in mechanism studies. Artificial environments were used more often than naturalistic environments, especially in mechanism and development studies. Naturalistic environments were common in function and evolution studies. Adult males were used more often than any other sex and age groups. The use of age groups, but not sexes, varied across ethological perspectives. Together, these findings highlight several advantages of contemporary rodent research, including opportunities to carry out in-depth studies of vocal mechanisms and to compare diverse species. Based on these findings, we also identify potential areas for future research. These research areas include non-mechanistic questions, as well as expanding species diversity, research environments, and animal sex and age groups. Rodent research from multiple ethological perspectives will be crucial for building a comprehensive understanding of animal acoustic communication. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-62c0fbff3ed54c3d8a299fe85b9e2a35 |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 2813-5091 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-08-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Ethology |
| spelling | doaj-art-62c0fbff3ed54c3d8a299fe85b9e2a352025-08-20T02:57:30ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Ethology2813-50912025-08-01410.3389/fetho.2025.15633741563374Advances in ethological approaches to explore rodent vocal communicationAli Abud0Ali Abud1Yihan Wang2Yihan Wang3Yihan Wang4Rechuma Hafter5Ehsan Tavakoli6Christina Wu7Senadee Atapattu8Ahmed Raza9Mohammad Ali10Ali Al-Hadi11Hamza Khalid12Rehmat K. Sukhija13Tobias Stoodley14Alisha Joshi15Samar Joshi16Samar Joshi17Morgan L. Gustison18Department of Biology, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, CanadaEvidentia Institute of Knowledge Synthesis, London, ON, CanadaDepartment of Biology, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, CanadaEvidentia Institute of Knowledge Synthesis, London, ON, CanadaTranslational and Clinical Research Institute, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United KingdomDepartment of Biology, CUNY Hunter College, New York, NY, United StatesSchulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, CanadaSchulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, CanadaDepartment of Biomedical Science and Department of Human Health and Nutritional Science, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, CanadaSchool of Interdisciplinary Science, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, CanadaDepartment of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, CanadaDepartment of Biology, York University, Toronto, ON, CanadaSchool of Interdisciplinary Science, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada0Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada1School of Psychological and Social Sciences, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New ZealandDepartment of Biology, York University, Toronto, ON, CanadaDepartment of Biology, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, CanadaEvidentia Institute of Knowledge Synthesis, London, ON, Canada2Department of Psychology, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, CanadaVocal communication is widespread across animals, from mammals to amphibians. In recent years, rodents have become an increasingly valuable group in which to study vocal communication. Rodents offer rich opportunities to examine vocalizations from proximate and ultimate ethological perspectives. Here, we identify recent advances in ethological research on rodent vocal communication by synthesizing contemporary studies from the past decade. We carried out a scoping review of research published between 2014 and 2024. This review involved a broad search for peer-reviewed primary research studies in APA PsycINFO, Embase, MEDLINE, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science databases. The search yielded 403 eligible studies on rodent vocalizations. We extracted information about the ethological perspectives, species, research environment, and animal sex and age groups. We also identified studies that focused on method development. We found that rodent vocal communication studies varied across ethological perspectives, with more studies carried out on vocal mechanisms and adaptive functions than on development and evolution. These studies covered a broad range of 88 rodent species, with high species diversity in function and evolution studies and low species diversity in mechanism studies. Artificial environments were used more often than naturalistic environments, especially in mechanism and development studies. Naturalistic environments were common in function and evolution studies. Adult males were used more often than any other sex and age groups. The use of age groups, but not sexes, varied across ethological perspectives. Together, these findings highlight several advantages of contemporary rodent research, including opportunities to carry out in-depth studies of vocal mechanisms and to compare diverse species. Based on these findings, we also identify potential areas for future research. These research areas include non-mechanistic questions, as well as expanding species diversity, research environments, and animal sex and age groups. Rodent research from multiple ethological perspectives will be crucial for building a comprehensive understanding of animal acoustic communication.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fetho.2025.1563374/fullRodentiavocalizationacoustic signalingevolutionfunctiondevelopment |
| spellingShingle | Ali Abud Ali Abud Yihan Wang Yihan Wang Yihan Wang Rechuma Hafter Ehsan Tavakoli Christina Wu Senadee Atapattu Ahmed Raza Mohammad Ali Ali Al-Hadi Hamza Khalid Rehmat K. Sukhija Tobias Stoodley Alisha Joshi Samar Joshi Samar Joshi Morgan L. Gustison Advances in ethological approaches to explore rodent vocal communication Frontiers in Ethology Rodentia vocalization acoustic signaling evolution function development |
| title | Advances in ethological approaches to explore rodent vocal communication |
| title_full | Advances in ethological approaches to explore rodent vocal communication |
| title_fullStr | Advances in ethological approaches to explore rodent vocal communication |
| title_full_unstemmed | Advances in ethological approaches to explore rodent vocal communication |
| title_short | Advances in ethological approaches to explore rodent vocal communication |
| title_sort | advances in ethological approaches to explore rodent vocal communication |
| topic | Rodentia vocalization acoustic signaling evolution function development |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fetho.2025.1563374/full |
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