%0 Journal Article %T Mares Prefer the Voices of Highly Fertile Stallions %+ Institut Universitaire de France (IUF) %+ Ethologie animale et humaine (EthoS) %+ Domaine Expérimental du Pin (DEP) %A Lemasson, Alban %A Remeuf, Kévin %A Trabalon, Marie %A Cuir, Frédérique %A Hausberger, Martine %Z This study was funded by the ‘Institut Français du Cheval et de l’Equitation’, the French Ministry of Research, the ‘Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique’ and the ‘Institut Universitaire de France’. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. %< avec comité de lecture %@ 1932-6203 %J PLoS ONE %I Public Library of Science %V 10 %N 2 %P e0118468 %8 2015-02 %D 2015 %R 10.1371/journal.pone.0118468 %M 25714814 %K Acoustics %K Horses %K Sperm %K Heart %K Physiological parameters %K Heart rate %K Mammals %K Testosterone %Z Life Sciences [q-bio]Journal articles %X We investigated the possibility that stallion whinnies, known to encode caller size, also encoded information about caller arousal and fertility, and the reactions of mares in relation to type of voice. Voice acoustic features are correlated with arousal and reproduction success, the lower-pitched the stallion's voice, the slower his heart beat and the higher his fertility. Females from three study groups preferred playbacks of low-pitched voices. Hence, females are attracted by frequencies encoding for large male size, calmness and high fertility. More work is needed to explore the relative importance of morpho-physiological features. Assor-tative mating may be involved as large females preferred voices of larger stallions. Our study contributes to basic and applied ongoing research on mammal reproduction, and questions the mechanisms used by females to detect males' fertility. %G English %2 https://univ-rennes.hal.science/hal-01120794/document %2 https://univ-rennes.hal.science/hal-01120794/file/Mares%20Prefer%20the%20Voices.pdf %L hal-01120794 %U https://univ-rennes.hal.science/hal-01120794 %~ UNIV-RENNES1 %~ CNRS %~ INRA %~ ETHOS %~ ETHOS-ICDC %~ ETHOS-PEGASE %~ ETHOS-COCORESO %~ STATS-UR1 %~ COMUE-NORMANDIE %~ UR1-UFR-SVE %~ UR1-HAL %~ UR1-SDV %~ ETHOS-DEEP %~ AGREENIUM %~ TEST-UNIV-RENNES %~ TEST-UR-CSS %~ UNIV-RENNES %~ UNICAEN %~ INRAE %~ GENETIQUE_ANIMALE %~ UR1-BIO-SA %~ LIPH4SAS %~ ETHOS-CIRCE