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Re-emergence of the leaf clip gesture during an alpha takeover affects variation in male chimpanzee loud calls

Loud calls are used by many species as long-distance signals for group defense, mate attraction, and inter- and intragroup spacing. Chimpanzee loud calls, or pant hoots, are used in a variety of contexts including group coordination and during male contests. Here, we observed an alpha male takeover...

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Autores principales: Kalan, Ammie K., Boesch, Christophe
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6026532/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29967740
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.5079
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author Kalan, Ammie K.
Boesch, Christophe
author_facet Kalan, Ammie K.
Boesch, Christophe
author_sort Kalan, Ammie K.
collection PubMed
description Loud calls are used by many species as long-distance signals for group defense, mate attraction, and inter- and intragroup spacing. Chimpanzee loud calls, or pant hoots, are used in a variety of contexts including group coordination and during male contests. Here, we observed an alpha male takeover in wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) during which the leaf clipping gesture re-emerged after disappearing for almost two years in this community. Leaf clipping only occurred in males and was observed almost exclusively prior to pant hoot vocalizations, as has been observed in other chimpanzee communities of the Taï forest in Côte d’Ivoire. Consequently, we hypothesized that leaf clipping may be important for male-male competition by affecting variation in the acoustic properties of male chimpanzee loud calls. We therefore investigated whether pant hoots preceded by leaf clipping differed acoustically from those without, while also testing the influence of social context on pant hoot variation, namely male dominance rank and hierarchy instability, i.e., before, during and after the alpha takeover. We found that pant hoots preceded by leaf clipping were longer, contained more call elements and drum beats, and lower fundamental and peak frequencies. Moreover, during the alpha takeover pant hoots were shorter, contained fewer drum beats and higher fundamental frequencies. Additionally, pant hoot and aggression rates were also highest during the alpha takeover with leaf clipping more likely to occur on days when pant hooting rates were high. Overall social rank had limited effects on pant hoot variation. We suggest that elevated arousal and aggression during the alpha takeover triggered the re-emergence of leaf clipping and the associated acoustic changes in pant hoots. Further research should focus on the potential mechanisms by which leaf clipping is connected to variation in pant hoots and cross-population comparisons of the behaviour.
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spelling pubmed-60265322018-07-02 Re-emergence of the leaf clip gesture during an alpha takeover affects variation in male chimpanzee loud calls Kalan, Ammie K. Boesch, Christophe PeerJ Animal Behavior Loud calls are used by many species as long-distance signals for group defense, mate attraction, and inter- and intragroup spacing. Chimpanzee loud calls, or pant hoots, are used in a variety of contexts including group coordination and during male contests. Here, we observed an alpha male takeover in wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) during which the leaf clipping gesture re-emerged after disappearing for almost two years in this community. Leaf clipping only occurred in males and was observed almost exclusively prior to pant hoot vocalizations, as has been observed in other chimpanzee communities of the Taï forest in Côte d’Ivoire. Consequently, we hypothesized that leaf clipping may be important for male-male competition by affecting variation in the acoustic properties of male chimpanzee loud calls. We therefore investigated whether pant hoots preceded by leaf clipping differed acoustically from those without, while also testing the influence of social context on pant hoot variation, namely male dominance rank and hierarchy instability, i.e., before, during and after the alpha takeover. We found that pant hoots preceded by leaf clipping were longer, contained more call elements and drum beats, and lower fundamental and peak frequencies. Moreover, during the alpha takeover pant hoots were shorter, contained fewer drum beats and higher fundamental frequencies. Additionally, pant hoot and aggression rates were also highest during the alpha takeover with leaf clipping more likely to occur on days when pant hooting rates were high. Overall social rank had limited effects on pant hoot variation. We suggest that elevated arousal and aggression during the alpha takeover triggered the re-emergence of leaf clipping and the associated acoustic changes in pant hoots. Further research should focus on the potential mechanisms by which leaf clipping is connected to variation in pant hoots and cross-population comparisons of the behaviour. PeerJ Inc. 2018-06-28 /pmc/articles/PMC6026532/ /pubmed/29967740 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.5079 Text en ©2018 Kalan and Boesch http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Animal Behavior
Kalan, Ammie K.
Boesch, Christophe
Re-emergence of the leaf clip gesture during an alpha takeover affects variation in male chimpanzee loud calls
title Re-emergence of the leaf clip gesture during an alpha takeover affects variation in male chimpanzee loud calls
title_full Re-emergence of the leaf clip gesture during an alpha takeover affects variation in male chimpanzee loud calls
title_fullStr Re-emergence of the leaf clip gesture during an alpha takeover affects variation in male chimpanzee loud calls
title_full_unstemmed Re-emergence of the leaf clip gesture during an alpha takeover affects variation in male chimpanzee loud calls
title_short Re-emergence of the leaf clip gesture during an alpha takeover affects variation in male chimpanzee loud calls
title_sort re-emergence of the leaf clip gesture during an alpha takeover affects variation in male chimpanzee loud calls
topic Animal Behavior
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6026532/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29967740
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.5079
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