Small apes adjust rhythms to facilitate song coordination

Ma, Haigang; Wang, Zidi; Han, Pu; Fan, Penglai; Chapman, Colin A.; Garber, Paul A.; Fan, Pengfei

doi:10.1016/j.cub.2023.12.071

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 74 publications

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“…To describe the temporal structure of the bark sequences in adult females and pups of unknown sex, we calculated the following indices: (1) IOI duration; (2) integer ratios (de Gregorio et al, 2023;Demartsev et al, 2022;Jacoby & McDermott, 2017;Lameira et al, 2024;Ma et al, 2024; i.e., IOI ratios calculated for all pairs of consecutive calls in a bark sequence); (3) coefficient of variation (CV) of IOIs, adjusted for small sample sizes (Kello et al, 2017)…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Isochrony in barks of Cape fur seal (Arctocephalus pusillus pusillus) pups and adults

Osiecka,

Fearey,

Ravignani

et al. 2024

Ecology and Evolution

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Animal vocal communication often relies on call sequences. The temporal patterns of such sequences can be adjusted to other callers, follow complex rhythmic structures or exhibit a metronome‐like pattern (i.e., isochronous). How regular are the temporal patterns in animal signals, and what influences their precision? If present, are rhythms already there early in ontogeny? Here, we describe an exploratory study of Cape fur seal (Arctocephalus pusillus pusillus) barks—a vocalisation type produced across many pinniped species in rhythmic, percussive bouts. This study is the first quantitative description of barking in Cape fur seal pups. We analysed the rhythmic structures of spontaneous barking bouts of pups and adult females from the breeding colony in Cape Cross, Namibia. Barks of adult females exhibited isochrony, that is they were produced at fairly regular points in time. Instead, intervals between pup barks were more variable, that is skipping a bark in the isochronous series occasionally. In both age classes, beat precision, that is how well the barks followed a perfect template, was worse when barking at higher rates. Differences could be explained by physiological factors, such as respiration or arousal. Whether, and how, isochrony develops in this species remains an open question. This study provides evidence towards a rhythmic production of barks in Cape fur seal pups and lays the groundwork for future studies to investigate the development of rhythm using multidimensional metrics.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Isochrony in barks of Cape fur seal (Arctocephalus pusillus pusillus) pups and adults

Osiecka,

Fearey,

Ravignani

et al. 2024

Ecology and Evolution

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Dance displays in gibbons: biological and linguistic perspectives on structured, intentional, and rhythmic body movement

Coye,

Caspar,

Patel-Grosz

2024

Primates

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Female crested gibbons (genus Nomascus) perform conspicuous sequences of twitching movements involving the rump and extremities. However, these dances have attracted little scientific attention and their structure and meaning remain largely obscure. Here we analyse close-range video recordings of captive crested gibbons, extracting descriptions of dance in four species (N. annamensis, N. gabriellae, N. leucogenys and N. siki). In addition, we report results from a survey amongst relevant professionals clarifying behavioural contexts of dance in captive and wild crested gibbons. Our results demonstrate that dances in Nomascus represent a common and intentional form of visual communication restricted to sexually mature females. Whilst primarily used as a proceptive signal to solicit copulation, dances occur in a wide range of contexts related to arousal and/or frustration in captivity. A linguistically informed view of this sequential behaviour demonstrates that movement within dances is organized in groups and follows an isochronous rhythm — patterns not described for visual displays in other non-human primates. We argue that applying the concept of dance to gibbons allows us to expand our understanding of communication in non-human primates and to develop hypotheses on the rules and regularities characterising it. We propose that crested gibbon dances likely evolved from less elaborate rhythmic proceptive signals, similar to those found in siamangs. Although dance displays in humans and crested gibbons share a number of key characteristics, they cannot be assumed to be homologous. Nevertheless, gibbon dances represent a striking model behaviour to investigate the use of complex gestural signals in hominoid primates.

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Vocal differences in note, sequence and great call sequence among three closely related Nomascus gibbon species

Han,

Ma,

Wang

et al. 2024

Int J Primatol

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The vocal structure of gibbons has long been believed to be under strong genetic control and consistent with phylogeny. Gibbon vocalizations show hierarchical structures and song coordination behaviors, which may have different functions and convey distinct information compared to basic notes. However, previous studies have not compared vocalizations at multiple levels across species. We compared the vocal structures of three Nomascus species in the wild in South China, namely the western black gibbon (Nomascus concolor), Cao vit gibbon (N. nasutus), and Hainan gibbon (N. hainanus) at the levels of note (six features of four types of notes), male sequence (eight features), and song coordination (four features of the overlap pattern between male and female songs). We selected 15 recordings for each species: N. concolor (six groups, 2006 to 2021), N. nasutus (seven groups, 2008 to 2021), and N. hainanus (six groups, 2020 to 2021). We used permuted random forest analysis to test for species differences in vocal structure and the contribution of acoustic features to species differences at each level. We used acoustic features to construct a hierarchical clustering tree, and compared it with phylogenetic relationships. We found significant differences at all levels except the boom note. Acoustic similarity did not match genetic similarity in boom and pre-modulated notes, suggesting that genetic differences are not the only factor leading to species differences in vocal structures. We also found different contributions of acoustic features to differentiation in vocal structure at different levels. Our study suggests that we need to compare gibbon vocalizations at different levels to understand their differentiation and evolution.

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Small apes adjust rhythms to facilitate song coordination

Cited by 4 publications

References 74 publications

Isochrony in barks of Cape fur seal (Arctocephalus pusillus pusillus) pups and adults

Isochrony in barks of Cape fur seal (Arctocephalus pusillus pusillus) pups and adults

Dance displays in gibbons: biological and linguistic perspectives on structured, intentional, and rhythmic body movement

Vocal differences in note, sequence and great call sequence among three closely related Nomascus gibbon species

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