The ‘after you’ gesture in a bird Suzuki, Toshitaka N.; Sugita, Norimasa
Current biology,
03/2024, Letnik:
34, Številka:
6
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Gestures are ubiquitous in human communication, involving movements of body parts produced for a variety of purposes, such as pointing out objects (deictic gestures) or conveying messages (symbolic ...gestures)1. While displays of body parts have been described in many animals2, their functional similarity to human gestures has primarily been explored in great apes3,4, with little research attention given to other animal groups. To date, only a few studies have provided evidence for deictic gestures in birds and fish5,6,7, but it is unclear whether non-primate animals can employ symbolic gestures, such as waving to mean ‘goodbye’, which are, in humans, more cognitively demanding than deictic gestures1. Here, we report that the Japanese tit (Parus minor), a socially monogamous bird, uses wing-fluttering to prompt their mated partner to enter the nest first, and that wing-fluttering functions as a symbolic gesture conveying a specific message (‘after you’). Our findings encourage further research on animal gestures, which may help in understanding the evolution of complex communication, including language.
Suzuki et al. show that a wild bird species uses wing movements as a gesture to prompt their mate to enter the nest cavity first. This discovery challenges the notion that gestures are exclusive to humans and great apes, opening new avenues for exploring the meanings of visual displays in a range of animal taxa.
Calls of the little auk Osiecka, Anna N; Briefer, Elodie F; Kidawa, Dorota ...
PloS one,
02/2024, Letnik:
19, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Animal vocalisations can often inform conspecifics about the behavioural context of production and the underlying affective states, hence revealing whether a situation should be approached or ...avoided. While this is particularly important for socially complex species, little is known about affective expression in wild colonial animals, and even less to about their young. We studied vocalisations of the little auk (Alle alle) chicks in the Hornsund breeding colony, Svalbard. Little auks are highly colonial seabirds, and adults convey complex behavioural contexts through their calls. We recorded chick calls during two contexts of opposite affective valence: handing by a human, and while they interact with their parents inside the nest. Using permuted discriminant function analysis and a series of linear mixed models, we examined the effect of the production context/associated affective valence on the acoustic parameters of those calls. Calls were reliably classified to their context, with over 97% accuracy. Calls uttered during handling had higher mean entropy, fundamental frequency, as well as lower spectral centre of gravity and a less steep spectral slope compared to calls produced during interactions with a parent inside the nest. The individuality of handling calls, assessed by information content, was lower than the individuality of calls uttered in the nest. These findings suggest that seabird chicks can effectively communicate behavioural/affective contexts through calls, conveying socially important messages early in development. Our results are mostly in line with emotional expression patterns observed across taxa, supporting their evolutionary continuity.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Narwhals (Monodon monoceros) are gregarious toothed whales that strictly reside in the high Arctic. They produce a broad range of signal types; however, studies of narwhal vocalizations have been ...mostly descriptive of the sounds available in the species' overall repertoire. Little is known regarding the functions of highly stereotyped mixed calls (i.e., biphonations with both sound elements produced simultaneously), although preliminary evidence has suggested that such vocalizations are individually distinctive and function as contact calls. Here we provide evidence that supports this notion in narwhal mother-calf communication. A female narwhal was tagged as part of larger studies on the life history and acoustic behavior of narwhals. At the time of tagging, it became apparent that the female had a calf, which remained close by during the tagging event. We found that the narwhal mother produced a distinct, highly stereotyped mixed call when separated from her calf and immediately after release from capture, which we interpret as preliminary evidence for contact call use between the mother and her calf. The mother's mixed call production occurred continually over the 4.2 day recording period in addition to a second prominent but different stereotyped mixed call which we believe belonged to the narwhal calf. Thus, narwhal mothers produce highly stereotyped contact calls when separated from their calves, and it appears that narwhal calves similarly produce distinct, stereotyped mixed calls which we hypothesize also contribute to maintaining mother-calf contact. We compared this behavior to the acoustic behavior of two other adult females without calves, but also each with a unique, stereotyped call type. While we provide additional support for individual distinctiveness across narwhal contact calls, more research is necessary to determine whether these calls are vocal signatures which broadcast identity.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Male moths compete to arrive first at a female releasing pheromone. A new study reveals that additional pheromone cues released only by younger females may prompt males to avoid them in favor of ...older but more fecund females.
Male moths compete to arrive first at a female releasing pheromone. A new study reveals that additional pheromone cues released only by younger females may prompt males to avoid them in favor of older but more fecund females.
Honey bees use a complex form of spatial referential communication. Their "waggle dance" communicates the direction, distance, and quality of a resource to nestmates by encoding celestial cues, ...retinal optic flow, and relative food value into motion and sound within the nest. We show that correct waggle dancing requires social learning. Bees without the opportunity to follow any dances before they first danced produced significantly more disordered dances with larger waggle angle divergence errors and encoded distance incorrectly. The former deficit improved with experience, but distance encoding was set for life. The first dances of bees that could follow other dancers showed neither impairment. Social learning, therefore, shapes honey bee signaling, as it does communication in human infants, birds, and multiple other vertebrate species.
Sound production capabilities and characteristics in Loricariidae, the largest catfish family, have not been well examined. Sounds produced by three loricariid catfish species, Otocinclus affinis, ...Pterygoplichthys gibbiceps, and Pterygoplichthys pardalis, were recorded. Each of these species produces pulses via pectoral-fin spine stridulation by rubbing the ridged condyle of the dorsal process of the pectoral-fin spine base against a matching groove-like socket in the pectoral girdle. Light and scanning electron microscopy were used to examine the dorsal process of the pectoral-fin spines of these species. Mean distances between dorsal process ridges of O. affinis, P. gibbiceps, and P. pardalis were 53, 161, and 329 μm, respectively. Stridulation sounds occurred during either abduction (type A) or adduction (type B). O. affinis produced sounds through adduction only and P. pardalis through abduction only, whereas P. gibbiceps often produced pulse trains alternating between abduction and adduction. In these species, dominant frequency was an inverse function of sound duration, fish total length, and inter-ridge distance on the dorsal process of the pectoral-fin spine and sound duration increased with fish total length. While stridulation sounds are used in many behavioral contexts in catfishes, the functional significance of sound production in Loricariidae is currently unknown.
This study evaluated the effects of exposure to sound stimuli on goat kids' relative intensity ratios (RIR) of harmonics one through five from d 0 to d 49 of growth. RIR are the ratio between a ...harmonic and the first harmonic. Day zero boer kids were randomly assigned to three treatment groups: treatment 1 (n=5) was only exposed to a single human voice recording, treatment 2 (n=4) was exposed to their boer dams, and treatment 3 (n=4) was exposed to no vocalizations. Each group was housed in pens (2.44 x 3.05 m) and received the same diets, which met or exceeded NRC requirements. The kids were isolated in their respective pens 1x/wk for 7 wk for 120 to 1000 s to obtain vocalization recordings. The kid's vocalizations were collected via a Blue Snowball iCE condenser microphone and laptop. VoceVista Video software was utilized to analyze the relative intensities (dB) of the first five harmonics. Results indicate there is no difference in average RIR between the human and treatment 1 of the second, third, and the fifth harmonics. Kids raised next to the dams had significantly lower average (P < 0.05) RIR for all of the harmonics. No significant difference was noted between the average RIR of harmonics three, four, and five of treatment 3 and the human recording. No difference in the RIR of second, third, and fifth harmonics suggest that a goat kid exposed to only human vocalization exhibits a human-like tone in relation to these harmonics within the first 7 wks. A difference in treatment two from the average RIR of the dams and no difference between treatments one and three compared to the human recording indicate that exposure to vocalizations during growth does have an effect on seven-week-old kid harmonic intensities.
The Meanings of Chimpanzee Gestures Hobaiter, Catherine; Byrne, Richard W.
Current biology,
07/2014, Letnik:
24, Številka:
14
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Chimpanzees’ use of gesture was described in the first detailed field study 1, 2, and natural use of specific gestures has been analyzed 3–5. However, it was systematic work with captive groups that ...revealed compelling evidence that chimpanzees use gestures to communicate in a flexible, goal-oriented, and intentional fashion 6–8, replicated across all great ape species in captivity 9–17 and chimpanzees in the wild 18, 19. All of these aspects overlap with human language but are apparently missing in most animal communication systems, including great ape vocalization, where extensive study has produced meager evidence for intentional use (20, but see 21, 22). Findings about great ape gestures spurred interest in a potential common ancestral origin with components of human language 23–25. Of particular interest, given the relevance to language origins, is the question of what chimpanzees intend their gestures to mean; surprisingly, the matter of what the intentional signals are used to achieve has been largely neglected. Here we present the first systematic study of meaning in chimpanzee gestural communication. Individual gestures have specific meanings, independently of signaler identity, and we provide a partial “lexicon”; flexibility is predominantly in the use of multiple gestures for a specific meaning. We distinguish a range of meanings, from simple requests associated with just a few gestures to broader social negotiation associated with a wider range of gesture types. Access to a range of alternatives may increase communicative subtlety during important social negotiations.
•Wild chimpanzees use 66 gestures to intentionally communicate 19 meanings•We analyzed >4,500 cases to extract true (nonplay) meanings for 36 gestures•Gestures have the same meaning (or meanings) across individual signalers•Flexible use of several gestures for the same goal is higher during social negotiation
Hobaiter and Byrne show that the 66 gestures of wild chimpanzees are used for a range of different meanings. Gestures are intentional and are made to achieve a particular effect, and their meaning does not vary between signalers. Analyzing 36 gestures and excluding playful usage showed 15 different meanings; flexibility was greater in social negotiation.
Insect life strategies comprise all levels of sociality from solitary to eusocial, in which individuals form persistent groups and divide labor. With increasing social complexity, the need to ...communicate a greater diversity of messages arose to coordinate division of labor, group cohesion, and concerted actions. Here we summarize the knowledge on prominent messages in social insects that inform about reproduction, group membership, resource locations, and threats and discuss potential evolutionary trajectories of each message in the context of social complexity.
Insect life strategies comprise all levels of sociality from solitary to eusocial, in which individuals form persistent groups and divide labor. With increasing social complexity, the need to communicate a greater diversity of messages arose to coordinate division of labor, group cohesion, and concerted actions. Here we summarize the knowledge on prominent messages in social insects that inform about reproduction, group membership, resource locations, and threats and discuss potential evolutionary trajectories of each message in the context of social complexity.
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