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Gestural Communication and Mating Tactics in Wild Chimpanzees

The extent to which primates can flexibly adjust the production of gestural communication according to the presence and visual attention of the audience provides key insights into the social cognition underpinning gestural communication, such as an understanding of third party relationships. Gesture...

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Autores principales: Roberts, Anna Ilona, Roberts, Sam George Bradley
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4633128/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26536467
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0139683
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author Roberts, Anna Ilona
Roberts, Sam George Bradley
author_facet Roberts, Anna Ilona
Roberts, Sam George Bradley
author_sort Roberts, Anna Ilona
collection PubMed
description The extent to which primates can flexibly adjust the production of gestural communication according to the presence and visual attention of the audience provides key insights into the social cognition underpinning gestural communication, such as an understanding of third party relationships. Gestures given in a mating context provide an ideal area for examining this flexibility, as frequently the interests of a male signaller, a female recipient and a rival male bystander conflict. Dominant chimpanzee males seek to monopolize matings, but subordinate males may use gestural communication flexibly to achieve matings despite their low rank. Here we show that the production of mating gestures in wild male East African chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweunfurthii) was influenced by a conflict of interest with females, which in turn was influenced by the presence and visual attention of rival males. When the conflict of interest was low (the rival male was present and looking away), chimpanzees used visual/ tactile gestures over auditory gestures. However, when the conflict of interest was high (the rival male was absent, or was present and looking at the signaller) chimpanzees used auditory gestures over visual/ tactile gestures. Further, the production of mating gestures was more common when the number of oestrous and non-oestrus females in the party increased, when the female was visually perceptive and when there was no wind. Females played an active role in mating behaviour, approaching for copulations more often when the number of oestrus females in the party increased and when the rival male was absent, or was present and looking away. Examining how social and ecological factors affect mating tactics in primates may thus contribute to understanding the previously unexplained reproductive success of subordinate male chimpanzees.
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spelling pubmed-46331282015-11-13 Gestural Communication and Mating Tactics in Wild Chimpanzees Roberts, Anna Ilona Roberts, Sam George Bradley PLoS One Research Article The extent to which primates can flexibly adjust the production of gestural communication according to the presence and visual attention of the audience provides key insights into the social cognition underpinning gestural communication, such as an understanding of third party relationships. Gestures given in a mating context provide an ideal area for examining this flexibility, as frequently the interests of a male signaller, a female recipient and a rival male bystander conflict. Dominant chimpanzee males seek to monopolize matings, but subordinate males may use gestural communication flexibly to achieve matings despite their low rank. Here we show that the production of mating gestures in wild male East African chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweunfurthii) was influenced by a conflict of interest with females, which in turn was influenced by the presence and visual attention of rival males. When the conflict of interest was low (the rival male was present and looking away), chimpanzees used visual/ tactile gestures over auditory gestures. However, when the conflict of interest was high (the rival male was absent, or was present and looking at the signaller) chimpanzees used auditory gestures over visual/ tactile gestures. Further, the production of mating gestures was more common when the number of oestrous and non-oestrus females in the party increased, when the female was visually perceptive and when there was no wind. Females played an active role in mating behaviour, approaching for copulations more often when the number of oestrus females in the party increased and when the rival male was absent, or was present and looking away. Examining how social and ecological factors affect mating tactics in primates may thus contribute to understanding the previously unexplained reproductive success of subordinate male chimpanzees. Public Library of Science 2015-11-04 /pmc/articles/PMC4633128/ /pubmed/26536467 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0139683 Text en © 2015 Roberts, Roberts http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Roberts, Anna Ilona
Roberts, Sam George Bradley
Gestural Communication and Mating Tactics in Wild Chimpanzees
title Gestural Communication and Mating Tactics in Wild Chimpanzees
title_full Gestural Communication and Mating Tactics in Wild Chimpanzees
title_fullStr Gestural Communication and Mating Tactics in Wild Chimpanzees
title_full_unstemmed Gestural Communication and Mating Tactics in Wild Chimpanzees
title_short Gestural Communication and Mating Tactics in Wild Chimpanzees
title_sort gestural communication and mating tactics in wild chimpanzees
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4633128/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26536467
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0139683
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