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Formants provide honest acoustic cues to body size in American alligators

Overview of attention for article published in Scientific Reports, May 2017
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (97th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (97th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
13 news outlets
blogs
1 blog
twitter
19 X users
facebook
4 Facebook pages
wikipedia
1 Wikipedia page

Citations

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26 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
48 Mendeley
Title
Formants provide honest acoustic cues to body size in American alligators
Published in
Scientific Reports, May 2017
DOI 10.1038/s41598-017-01948-1
Pubmed ID
Authors

Stephan A. Reber, Judith Janisch, Kevin Torregrosa, Jim Darlington, Kent A. Vliet, W. Tecumseh Fitch

Abstract

In many vertebrates, acoustic cues to body size are encoded in resonance frequencies of the vocal tract ("formants"), rather than in the rate of tissue vibration in the sound source ("pitch"). Anatomical constraints on the vocal tract's size render formants honest cues to size in many bird and mammal species, but it is not clear whether this correlation evolved convergently in these two clades, or whether it is widespread among amniotes (mammals, birds, and non-avian reptiles). We investigated the potential for honest acoustic cues in the bellows of adult American alligators and found that formant spacing provided highly reliable cues to body size, while presumed correlates of the source signal did not. These findings held true for both sexes and for all bellows whether produced in or out of water. Because birds and crocodilians are the last extant Archosaurians and share common ancestry with all extinct dinosaurs, our findings support the hypothesis that dinosaurs used formants as cues to body size. The description of formants as honest signals in a non-avian reptile combined with previous evidence from birds and mammals strongly suggests that the principle of honest signalling via vocal tract resonances may be a broadly shared trait among amniotes.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 19 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 48 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 48 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Researcher 10 21%
Student > Ph. D. Student 9 19%
Student > Bachelor 7 15%
Student > Master 6 13%
Student > Postgraduate 3 6%
Other 6 13%
Unknown 7 15%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 26 54%
Environmental Science 3 6%
Arts and Humanities 2 4%
Physics and Astronomy 2 4%
Linguistics 2 4%
Other 4 8%
Unknown 9 19%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 123. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 17 October 2023.
All research outputs
#329,579
of 24,896,578 outputs
Outputs from Scientific Reports
#3,712
of 136,361 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#6,900
of 315,620 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Scientific Reports
#118
of 4,015 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 24,896,578 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 98th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 136,361 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 18.7. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 315,620 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 4,015 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its contemporaries.