Hearing Ability of Prairie Voles (Microtus ochrogaster)

ABSTRACT Hearing ability of mammals can be impacted by many factors including social cues, environment, and physical properties of animal morphology. Despite being used commonly to study social behaviors, hearing of the monogamous prairie vole ( Microtus ochrogaster ) has never been fully characterized. In this study, we measure morphological head and pinna features and use auditory brainstem responses to measure auditory capabilities of prairie voles characterizing monaural and binaural hearing and hearing range. Additionally, we measured unbonded male and female voles to characterize differences due to sex. We found that prairie voles show a hearing range with greatest sensitivity between 8 – 32 kHz, robust binaural hearing, and characteristic monaural ABRs. We show no differences between the sexes for binaural hearing or hearing range, however female voles have increased amplitude of peripheral ABR waves I and II and increased latency of wave IV. Our results confirm that prairie voles have both low and high frequency hearing, binaural hearing, and despite biparental care and monogamy, differences in processing of sound information between the sexes. These data further highlight the necessity to understand sex-specific differences in neural processing that may underly variability in behavioral responses between sexes. Highlights Monogamous prairie voles hear across both low and high frequencies. Female prairie voles show differences in monaural hearing compared to males. There is no difference in binaural hearing or pinna/head size morphology between the sexes.