Behavioral phylogeny in deer : the relevance of vocal characters

Abstract : The phylogenetic relationships of Cervidae have been debated for decades. While recent molecular studies seem to have reached a consensus, their results are in contradiction with phylogenies based on morphological characters. In a previous study of the behavioral repertoire of females (87 characters, 9 species) we were able to specify \"ethotypes\" defining monophyletic clades coherent with the current phylogeny of Cervidae, which suggested that behavior can provide a non-aberrant phylogenetic signal. In this study the phylogenetic relationships among 11 species of Cervidae were inferred from an analysis of male vocal behavior. Eighteen characters, including call types (e.g. antipredator bark, mating loudcall) and acoustic characteristics (call composition, fundamental frequency and formant frequencies), were used for phylogeny inference. The resulting topology and the phylogenetic consistency of behavioral characters were compared with those of current molecular phylogenies of Cervidae and with separate and simultaneous parsimony analyses of molecular and behavioral data. Our results indicate that male vocalizations constitute useful phylogenetic characters in this taxon. Evolutionary scenarios for the vocal characters are discussed in relation with associated behaviors.