Meeting Abstract
Much of the research regarding mother-offspring communication has focused on individual recognition between mother and offspring and its role in subsequent bond formation. It remains unclear, however, if mothers and offspring utilize auditory communication for the same purposes or under the same conditions throughout the juvenile stage, particularly after social connections have been sufficiently established. Moreover, despite its critical role in mother-offspring bond formation, research explicitly linking mother-infant communication strategies to offspring survival are lacking. We examined the communicative patterns of mothers and offspring in the feral horse (Equus caballus) to better understand 1) the nature of mother-offspring communication throughout the juvenile stage; 2) the function(s) of mother- vs. offspring-initiated communication and; 3) the importance of mare and foal communication to offspring survival. We found that 1) mares and foals differ in when and how they initiate communication; 2) the outcomes of mare- vs. foal-initiated communication bouts consistently differ; and 3) the communicative patterns between mares and their foals may be important to future offspring survival. We submit that these results can help us to better understand the long-debated question: do the behaviors of young mammals confer delayed or immediate benefits to offspring? You’ll have to come to the talk to find out…
