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Tolerant and intolerant macaques differ in the context specificity of their calls and how they ‘comment’ on the interactions of others
Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology ( IF 2.3 ) Pub Date : 2022-05-06 , DOI: 10.1007/s00265-022-03177-7
Nancy Rebout , Arianna De Marco , Andrea Sanna , Jérôme Micheletta , Jean-Christophe Lone , Reinier F. van den Berg , Elisabeth H. M. Sterck , Jan A. M. Langermans , Bernard Thierry , Alban Lemasson

Abstract

The ‘social complexity hypothesis for communicative complexity’ posits that living in a complex social system requires complex communication skills. Since the complexity of a system can be measured by the amount of uncertainty it produces, we tested this hypothesis by studying species of macaque that differ in social tolerance and uncertainty of social interactions. We studied vocal communication in groups of macaques belonging to four species: Japanese and rhesus macaques, which are characterized by low levels of social tolerance and low uncertainty in the outcome of social interactions, and Tonkean and crested macaques, which display high levels of tolerance and uncertainty in interactions. We recorded the vocalizations emitted by adult females in agonistic, affiliative and neutral contexts. We measured call duration, entropy and time and frequency energy quantiles and processed these variables using cluster analyses and permutational multivariate analyses of variance. We found that tolerant macaques had a weaker relationship between the acoustic structure of calls and their context of emission compared to intolerant macaques. The study of ‘commenting calls’, i.e. calls made by individuals attending interactions between groupmates, also showed that their acoustic structure was more differentiated from other calls in tolerant Tonkean and crested macaques than in intolerant rhesus macaques. The flexibility of vocal production therefore appears to be correlated with the level of uncertainty of social interactions. Species with more complex social interactions were also those with higher degree of freedom in the association between acoustic structure and social context, which supports the social complexity hypothesis.

Significance statement

Is there a relationship between the complexity of social systems and the complexity of communication skills? Animals living in complex social environments are expected to use a wide variety of messages related to different goals and contexts. The complexity of a system can be assessed by the amount of uncertainty it can produce. We investigated the complexity of vocal communication by comparing two species of macaque displaying low uncertainty in their social interactions, with two other macaque species displaying high levels of uncertainty in their interactions. The comparison showed that call flexibility was related to uncertainty levels. Species with higher levels of uncertainty had weaker associations between acoustic structure and social context. These results support the hypothesis of a link between social system complexity and communication complexity, which has important implications for our understanding of the evolution of social and communication systems.



中文翻译:

宽容和不宽容的猕猴在呼叫的上下文特异性以及他们如何“评论”他人的互动方面有所不同

摘要

“交际复杂性的社会复杂性假说”假设生活在复杂的社会系统中需要复杂的沟通技巧。由于系统的复杂性可以通过它产生的不确定性来衡量,我们通过研究在社会容忍度和社会互动的不确定性方面不同的猕猴物种来验证这一假设。我们研究了属于四个物种的猕猴群的声音交流:日本猕猴和恒河猴,其特点是社会容忍度低,社会互动结果的不确定性低,以及东肯猕猴和冠猕猴,表现出高水平的容忍度和互动的不确定性。我们记录了成年女性在激动、亲和和中立的环境中发出的声音。我们测量了通话时长,熵和时间和频率能量分位数,并使用聚类分析和置换多变量方差分析处理这些变量。我们发现,与不宽容的猕猴相比,宽容的猕猴在叫声的声学结构与其发射环境之间的关系较弱。对“评论呼叫”的研究,即参加小组成员之间互动的个体发出的呼叫,也表明它们的声学结构与其他呼叫相比,在宽容的 Tonkean 和有冠猕猴中比在不宽容的恒河猴中更加不同。因此,发声的灵活性似乎与社交互动的不确定性水平相关。

意义陈述

社会系统的复杂性和沟通技巧的复杂性之间有关系吗?生活在复杂社会环境中的动物预计会使用与不同目标和背景相关的各种信息。系统的复杂性可以通过它可以产生的不确定性来评估。我们通过比较两种在社交互动中表现出低不确定性的猕猴与其他两种在互动中表现出高度不确定性的猕猴来研究声音交流的复杂性。比较表明呼叫灵活性与不确定性水平有关。具有较高不确定性的物种在声学结构和社会背景之间的关联较弱。

更新日期:2022-05-06
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