CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 7Animal Vocal Communication and BehaviorMarine animal studies overviewWildlife Ecology and Conservation

The acoustic repertoire and behavioural context of the vocalisations of a nocturnal dasyurid, the eastern quoll (Dasyurus viverrinus)

Open access
Dorph, Annalie, McDonald, Paul G.·2017·PLOS ONE
DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0179337PMC PMC5501449
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

Defining an acoustic repertoire is essential to understanding vocal signalling and communicative interactions within a species. Currently, quantitative and statistical definition is lacking for the vocalisations of many dasyurids, an important group of small to medium-sized marsupials from Australasia that includes the eastern quoll (Dasyurus viverrinus), a species of conservation concern. Beyond generating a better understanding of this species' social interactions, determining an acoustic repertoire will further improve detection rates and inference of vocalisations gathered by automated bioacoustic recorders. Hence, this study investigated eastern quoll vocalisations using objective signal processing techniques to quantitatively analyse spectrograms recorded from 15 different individuals. Recordings were collected in conjunction with observations of the behaviours associated with each vocalisation to develop an acoustic-based behavioural repertoire for the species. Analysis of recordings produced a putative classification of five vocalisation types: Bark, Growl, Hiss, Cp-cp, and Chuck. These were most frequently observed during agonistic encounters between conspecifics, most likely as a graded sequence from Hisses occurring in a warning context through to Growls and finally Barks being given prior to, or during, physical confrontations between individuals. Quantitative and statistical methods were used to objectively establish the accuracy of these five putative call types. A multinomial logistic regression indicated a 97.27% correlation with the perceptual classification, demonstrating support for the five different vocalisation types. This putative classification was further supported by hierarchical cluster analysis and silhouette information that determined the optimal number of clusters to be five. Minor disparity between the objective and perceptual classifications was potentially the result of gradation between vocalisations, or subtle differences present within vocalisations not discernible to the human ear. The implication of these different vocalisations and their given context is discussed in relation to the ecology of the species and the potential application of passive acoustic monitoring techniques.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1371/journal.pone.0179337

Cites

62 of 62 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • The acoustic signals produced by crocodylians in response to threat are likely to generate a different motivational state when compared to those produced in response to other stimuli such as benign social interactions.

    “The acoustic signals produced by crocodylians in response to threat are likely to generate a different motivational state when compared to those produced in response to other stimuli such as benign social interactions (Köhler et al. 2017; Dorph and McDonald 2017).”

    From Roars, Rumbles, and Resonance: A Systematic Review and Meta‐Analysis of Crocodylian Acoustic Signals (2026) · cites this paper as Dorph and McDonald 2017

    The Introduction (page unavailable) says vocalisation structure and function may vary with a signaller’s motivational state and social circumstances. The Results and Discussion (pages unavailable) associate different eastern-quoll calls with perceived threats and mating-related interactions. The paper does not study crocodylians or establish that their calls generate different motivational states in listeners, so the species-specific and listener-effect parts of the claim are unsupported. (LLM, conf=0.85)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

1 of the 63 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 6

  1. [22]Croft DB. Communication in the Dasyuridae (Marsupialia): A review In: Archer M, editor. Carnivorous Marsupials. 1. Sydney: Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales; 1982 p. 291– 309.
  2. [24]Fleay DH. The rare dasyures (native cats). Victorian Naturalist. 1932; 49: 63– 8.
  3. [33]Jones M. Clash of the carnivores. Nature Australia. 1996; 25: 46– 55.
  4. [40]Potter, FJ, editor A study of procedures to identify and trim extreme sampling weights. Proceedings of the Survey Research Methods Section of the American Statistical Association; 1990 August 6–9; Anaheim, California.
  5. [41]Kish L. Weighting for unequal Pi. J Off Stat. 1992; 8 (2): 183– 200.
  6. [42]Alexander, CH, Dahl S, Weidman L, editors. Making estimates from the American Community Survey. Proceedings of the Social Statistics Section of the American Statistical Association; 1997 August 10–14; Anaheim, California.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Dorph, A., & McDonald, P. G.
Affiliations
University of New England (AU)
Corresponding author
McDonald, Paul G.
ORCID
Venue
PLOS ONE
Publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Published
2017-07-07
Volume
12
Issue
7
Pages
e0179337
ISSN
1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0179337
PMC
PMC5501449
OpenAlex
W2730284182
Cited by
7
References
63
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 1 · 2017: 1
FWCI
0.51
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • EPubDev Repository (submittedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • RUNE (Research UNE) (submittedVersion)
Funders
University of New England
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Developmental Biology › Animal Vocal Communication and Behavior
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Marine animal studies overview
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Wildlife Ecology and Conservation
Keywords
eastern quoll, Dasyurus viverrinus, vocalizations, acoustic repertoire, Dasyuridae, agonistic behavior, alarm calls, bark, growl, hiss, passive acoustic monitoring, conservation
MeSH terms
Acoustics, Animals, Marsupialia, Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted, Vocalization, Animal, Cluster Analysis, Australasia

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review