Alarm signals in goitered gazelle with special reference to stotting, hissing and alarm urination-defecation

Compared to solitary species, social ungulates benefit from living in groups not only because of the "many eyes effect", when each individual devotes less time to vigilance and spends more time foraging and engaged in other activities, or of the "dilution effect", when the probability that any specific individual will be caught decreases with herd size, but also because of early alarm signals produced by conspecifics that provide enough time for a successful escape from predator attack. These signals can contain multiple messages about the category of the predator and the degree of risk. Among them, stotting, alarm calls and alarm urination-defecation acts are distinctive channels of prey-predator and/or prey-prey communications. However, stotting gaits and alarm vocalizations are still subjects of numerous debates on their functionality and to whom they are addressed (predator or conspecifics); in addition, alarm urination-defecation is known for a few ungulate species and until now functional significance of this behavior has stayed elusive. I found that stotting and hissing were used by adult females significantly more often than adult males, and that they displayed these behaviors most often at the end of the hiding period and from 2 to 3 months thereafter. Stotting and alarm hissing are likely mainly used to address conspecifics as well as being used by females to warn and manage their fawns in dangerous situations and to teach them to avoid being preyed upon during the initial time after the hiding period. In contrast, alarm urination-defecation acts were displayed by females and males equally and apart of being pure physiological functions and/or a release the stress from encountering a predator, they likely also had significance as an alarm signal, though this association is poorly explored and needs further investigation.