Kommunikative Komplexität bei Primaten: Sozialität und multimodale Kommunikation bei zwei Lemurenarten
Zusammenfassung der Projektergebnisse
Animals exhibit a stunning variation not only in the type, but also in the number of signals they produce. Thereby, variation in signal diversity has been attributed to social complexity, with species living in more complex societies exhibiting more complex signals. However, how to best quantify social and communicative complexity is a topic of ongoing debate. Moreover, as compelling as studies highlighting a link between social and communicative complexity are, in most studies only one communicative modality has been considered, although most animals communicate in several modalities and also dispose of multimodal signals. In addition, audience effects have been neglected in the framework of social complexity, though variation in social contexts (the audience) may promote flexibility in signal production and usage. We studied the communicative system of two closely-related lemur species that are similar in size and morphology, live in a similar habitat, but differ in their social organization. We compared the communicative system of group-living redfronted lemurs, which exhibit a rather egalitarian social structure with no intersexual dominance with that of pair-living female-dominant mongoose lemurs, predicting that the group-living species is more socially complex and therefore exhibits greater communicative complexity. We characterized the communicative system comprising vocal, visual and olfactory signals as well as multimodal signals in wild redfronted and mongoose lemurs in Madagascar. We could show that the socially more complex redfronted lemurs had overall a larger communicative system, including multimodal signals, than the socially less complex mongoose lemurs. In addition, by using a new analytical framework to study communicative networks we could show that signal usage across modalities was more flexible and more predictable in redfronted than mongoose lemurs, supporting the notion that redfronted lemurs require greater flexibility and accuracy in their communicative systems to navigate a more uncertain social environment associated with living in larger groups exhibiting. In addition, we could show in redfronted lemurs that the usage of anogenital-scent marks, which are combined with conspicuous visual displays and therefore constitute a multimodal signal, is adapted to the audience. Males refrained from scent-marking when more and socially better-connected males were present in the audience. Females in contrast, did not adjust their scent-marking behavior to the general composition of the audience but to the presence of socially more embedded females by marking more often in presence of these females. Hence, audience effects were more pronounced in males, indicating that intra-sexual competition may more strongly influence scent-mark deposition in males than in females. Hence, social selective pressures may have led to the flexibility in usage of these multi-modal signals.
Projektbezogene Publikationen (Auswahl)
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(2018) Potential self-medication using millipede secretions in red-fronted lemurs: combining anointment and ingestion for a joint action against gastrointestinal parasites? Primates. 59, 483–494
Peckre RL, Defolie C, Kappeler PM, Fichtel C
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(2019) Clarifying and expanding the social complexity hypothesis for communicative complexity. Behavioral Ecology & Sociobiology, 73:11
Peckre LR, Kappeler PM, Fichtel C
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(2019) Remotely releasable collar mechanism for medium-sized mammals: an affordable technology to avoid multiple captures. Wildlife Biology, 1: 1-7
Buil JM, Peckre LR, Dörge M, Fichtel C, Kappeler PM, Scherberger H
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(2021) Dominance style is a key predictor of vocal use and evolution across nonhuman primates. Royal Society Open Science 8: 210873
Kavanagh E, … Fichtel C, … Kappeler PM,… Peckre LR, … Slocombe K
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(2021) Measuring communicative complexity across modalities: a new framework in the context of the “social complexity hypothesis” and its application in eulemurs. PhD thesis, University of Göttingen
Peckre LR
