BACKGROUND There has been considerable research on rodent ultrasound in the laboratory and these sounds have been well quantified and characterized. Despite the value of research on ultrasound produced by mice in the lab, it is unclear if, and when, these sounds are produced in the wild, and how they function in natural habitats. RESULTS We have made the first recordings of ultrasonic vocalizations produced by two free-living species of mice in the genus Peromyscus (P. californicus and P. boylii) on long term study grids in California. Over 6 nights, we recorded 65 unique ultrasonic vocalization phrases from Peromyscus. The ultrasonic vocalizations we recorded represent 7 different motifs. Within each motif, there was considerable variation in the acoustic characteristics suggesting individual and contextual variation in the production of ultrasound by these species. CONCLUSION The discovery of the production of ultrasonic vocalizations by Peromyscus in the wild highlights an underappreciated component in the behavior of these model organisms. The ability to examine the production of ultrasonic vocalizations in the wild offers excellent opportunities to test hypotheses regarding the function of ultrasound produced by rodents in a natural context.

中文翻译：

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野生白腹鼠 (Peromyscus) 小鼠发出超声波发声。


背景技术在实验室中对啮齿动物超声进行了大量研究，并且这些声音已被很好地量化和表征。尽管对实验室中小鼠产生的超声波的研究具有价值，但尚不清楚这些声音是否以及何时在野外产生，以及它们在自然栖息地中如何发挥作用。结果 我们在加利福尼亚州的长期研究网格上首次记录了两种自由生活的白鼠属小鼠（P. californicus 和 P. boylii）发出的超声波发声。在 6 个晚上的时间里，我们录制了 Peromyscus 的 65 个独特的超声波发声短语。我们记录的超声波发声代表 7 种不同的主题。在每个主题中，声学特征存在相当大的变化，这表明这些物种产生超声波的个体和环境存在差异。结论 野生白鼠属产生超声波发声的发现凸显了这些模式生物行为中一个未被充分认识的部分。在野外检查超声波发声的能力为测试有关啮齿动物在自然环境中产生的超声波功能的假设提供了极好的机会。