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Journal of the Acoustical Society of America / Volume 129 / Issue 3 / BIOACOUSTICS [80]

Sources of acoustic variation: Implications for production specificity and call categorization in chacma baboon (Papio ursinus) grunts

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 129, Issue 3, pp. 1631-1641 (2011); (11 pages)

Kristine Meise1, Christina Keller2, Guy Cowlishaw3, and Julia Fischer2

1Department of Behavioral Biology, University of Bielefeld, Morgenbreede 45, 33615 Bielefeld, Germany
2Cognitive Ethology Laboratory, German Primate Center, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Gö ttingen, Germany
3Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, Regent’s Park, London NW1 4RY, United Kingdom

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Elucidating the information content of vocal signals is fundamental to the understanding of animal communication. Acoustically distinct calls produced in specific contexts allow listeners to predict future events and choose adequate responses. However, the vocal repertoires of most terrestrial mammals consist of a limited number of call types that vary within and between categories. These “graded signaling systems” are thought to be rich in information, at the cost of increasing uncertainty regarding call categorization. In this study, patterns of acoustic variation in grunts of wild chacma baboons (Papio ursinus) were assessed in relation to different contexts, callers’ arousal, the presence of listeners, and individual identity. Although overall production specificity was low, and sensitive to the number of contexts under consideration, grunts given in three contexts could be statistically distinguished from each other. Contextual differences remained when controlling for caller arousal, suggesting that these differences cannot be explained by variation in arousal. No audience effect was detected, but individual identity was found to have an influence on acoustic structure. Overall, these results support the view that, in comparison to other signaling systems associated with hazardous conditions, lower production specificity might evolve under relaxed circumstances where unambiguous signaling is less important.

© 2011 Acoustical Society of America

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank Thomas Alexander for invaluable assistance in the field, Kurt Hammerschmidt for helpful discussions and assistance in the statistics, Ralph Pirow for further statistical assistance, Roger Mundry for running the permutation analysis, Dana Pfefferle for discussions and comments on the manuscript, and Ulrich Pörschmann for support with the graphical design. Two anonymous reviewers provided useful comments on the manuscript. We also thank the Swart family (2000–2006) and the Ministry of Lands and Resettlement (2006–2007) for permission to work at Tsaobis Leopard Park, the Gobabeb Training and Research Centre for affiliation and the Ministry of Environment and Tourism for research permission. This work was funded by a Natural Environment Research Council (UK) Project Grant and Advanced Fellowship awarded to GC. This paper is a publication of the ZSL Institute of Zoology’s Tsaobis Baboon Project.

Article Outline

  1. INTRODUCTION
  2. METHODS
    1. Study site and subjects
    2. Data collection
    3. Acoustic analysis
    4. Formant analysis
    5. Statistical analysis
  3. RESULTS
    1. Context differences in chacma baboon grunts
    2. Effects of inter-call intervals as an index of arousal on the acoustic structure of grunts
    3. Inter-call intervals did not influence the distinction between grunts across contexts
  4. DISCUSSION

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KEYWORDS and PACS

Keywords

acoustic wave production, biocommunications, hearing

PACS

  • 43.80.Ka

    Sound production by animals: mechanisms, characteristics, populations, biosonar

  • 43.60.Ek

    Acoustic signal coding, morphology, and transformation

  • 43.80.Jz

    Use of acoustic energy (with or without other forms) in studies of structure and function of biological systems

ARTICLE DATA

History
Received 29 May 2009
Accepted 04 Dec 2010
Revised 22 Nov 2010
Published online 09 Mar 2011
Digital Object Identifier
http://dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.3531944

PUBLICATION DATA

ISSN

0001-4966 (print)  

Publisher

$abstract.society.value is a Member of CrossRef Acoustical Society of America

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