Cargando…
Male African elephants discriminate and prefer vocalizations of unfamiliar females
Gaining information about conspecifics via long-distance vocalizations is crucial for social and spatially flexible species such as the African elephant (Loxodonta africana). Female elephants are known to discriminate individuals and kin based on acoustic cues. Specifically, females approached the l...
Autores principales: | , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group
2017
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5395942/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28422091 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep46414 |
_version_ | 1783229974324445184 |
---|---|
author | Stoeger, Angela S. Baotic, Anton |
author_facet | Stoeger, Angela S. Baotic, Anton |
author_sort | Stoeger, Angela S. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Gaining information about conspecifics via long-distance vocalizations is crucial for social and spatially flexible species such as the African elephant (Loxodonta africana). Female elephants are known to discriminate individuals and kin based on acoustic cues. Specifically, females approached the loudspeaker exclusively with playbacks of familiar individuals with high association indexes, intentionally fusing with their affiliates. For males, which are less bonded, gathering social information via vocalizations could still have important implications, but little is known about their vocal discrimination skills. We experimentally tested the ability of male African elephants to discriminate the social rumbles of familiar (from the same population) versus unfamiliar females. Male elephants discriminated and preferentially moved towards the rumbles of unfamiliar females, showing longer attentive reactions and significantly more orientating (facing and approaching the speaker) behavior. The increased orientating response of males towards playbacks of unfamiliar females is converse to the reaction of female subjects. Our results provide evidence that male elephants extract social information from vocalizations, yet with a different intention than females. Accordingly, males might use social cues in vocalizations to assess mating opportunities, which may involve selection to identify individuals or kin in order to avoid inbreeding. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5395942 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2017 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-53959422017-04-21 Male African elephants discriminate and prefer vocalizations of unfamiliar females Stoeger, Angela S. Baotic, Anton Sci Rep Article Gaining information about conspecifics via long-distance vocalizations is crucial for social and spatially flexible species such as the African elephant (Loxodonta africana). Female elephants are known to discriminate individuals and kin based on acoustic cues. Specifically, females approached the loudspeaker exclusively with playbacks of familiar individuals with high association indexes, intentionally fusing with their affiliates. For males, which are less bonded, gathering social information via vocalizations could still have important implications, but little is known about their vocal discrimination skills. We experimentally tested the ability of male African elephants to discriminate the social rumbles of familiar (from the same population) versus unfamiliar females. Male elephants discriminated and preferentially moved towards the rumbles of unfamiliar females, showing longer attentive reactions and significantly more orientating (facing and approaching the speaker) behavior. The increased orientating response of males towards playbacks of unfamiliar females is converse to the reaction of female subjects. Our results provide evidence that male elephants extract social information from vocalizations, yet with a different intention than females. Accordingly, males might use social cues in vocalizations to assess mating opportunities, which may involve selection to identify individuals or kin in order to avoid inbreeding. Nature Publishing Group 2017-04-19 /pmc/articles/PMC5395942/ /pubmed/28422091 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep46414 Text en Copyright © 2017, The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
spellingShingle | Article Stoeger, Angela S. Baotic, Anton Male African elephants discriminate and prefer vocalizations of unfamiliar females |
title | Male African elephants discriminate and prefer vocalizations of unfamiliar females |
title_full | Male African elephants discriminate and prefer vocalizations of unfamiliar females |
title_fullStr | Male African elephants discriminate and prefer vocalizations of unfamiliar females |
title_full_unstemmed | Male African elephants discriminate and prefer vocalizations of unfamiliar females |
title_short | Male African elephants discriminate and prefer vocalizations of unfamiliar females |
title_sort | male african elephants discriminate and prefer vocalizations of unfamiliar females |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5395942/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28422091 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep46414 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT stoegerangelas maleafricanelephantsdiscriminateandprefervocalizationsofunfamiliarfemales AT baoticanton maleafricanelephantsdiscriminateandprefervocalizationsofunfamiliarfemales |