Acoustic features and morphological parameters of the domestic chickens

Abstract

Acoustic characteristics reflect male quality and play a role in female mate choice. Thus, the frequency of vocalizations and temporal characteristics are often related to body size within and across species. However, it is less clear whether acoustic features can reveal information about individual quality in the domestic chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) populations. Here, we investigated the relationship between morphological parameters and acoustic features in male and female free-ranged domestic chickens in Liuzhi, Guizhou, southwest China, and further examined whether acoustic characteristics correlate with internal organs, including the heart, liver, testis, and spleen in male chickens, and whether the cackling call of females indicates body size and mass. We found that both male and female chickens differ significantly in their morphological parameters; however, based on acoustic parameters, they only differ in high frequency. Morphological parameters displayed no relationship with the frequency and duration of calls in both male and female chickens. Furthermore, none of the frequency or temporal parameters of the calls we studied were related to the internal body parameters of males.

Keywords: acoustic feature; cackle; domestic chicken; internal body parameter; male quality.

Figure 1

Spectrograms of the calls of domestic chickens. X-axis represent time in seconds while Y-axis shows frequency in hertz. (a) the male chicken call and (b) cackling call of the female chicken.

Figure 2

Relationship between morphological parameters and the high frequency of calls in male chickens. The X-axis indicates the frequency in Hz, and the Y-axis represents the body parameters of male chickens. The line indicates the linear regression between two variables, and the shaded grey area represents the 95% confidence interval.

Figure 3

Relationship between morphological parameters and the high frequency of calls in female chickens. The X-axis represents the frequency in Hz, and the Y-axis shows the body parameters of female chickens. The line indicates the linear regression between two variables, and the shaded grey area represents the 95% confidence interval.