Yara Silberstein

Project: Context depending vocal communication between Mongolian Gerbils (Meriones unguiculatus)

Mongolian gerbils (Meriones unguiculatus) are widely used as an animal model for investigating neuronal processing of sound due to their capacity to hear in low and high frequencies. Nonetheless, the connection between emitted calls and the thereby resulting behaviour has not yet been thoroughly investigated. Therefore, in my study I intend to link the acoustic structure of different Mongolian Gerbil calls to specific contexts. Special focus will be given to the vocalisations emitted by Mongolian Gerbil pups, where the impact of age, arousal and weight on the calls will be reported.