Vocal combinations in guenon communication

Cercopithecus;Animal communication

Coye, Camille ; Zuberbuhler, Klaus ; Zuberbuhler, Klaus

University:University of St Andrews

Department:Psychology & Neuroscience (School of)

关键词: Cercopithecus;    Animal communication;   

Others  :  https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/10023/15650/CamilleCoyePhDThesis.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y

来源: DR-NTU

【 摘 要 】

It is generally accepted that comparative studies on animal communication can provide insights into thecoevolution of social life, vocal communication, cognitive capacities and notably the emergence ofsome human language features. Recent studies suggested that non-human primates possesscombinatorial abilities that may allow a diversification of vocal repertoires or a richer communicationin spite of limited articulatory capacities. However, the functions of combined calls and the informationthat receivers can extract remain poorly understood. This thesis investigated call combination systemsin two species of guenons: Campbell’s monkey (Cercopithecus Campbelli) and Diana monkey(Cercopithecus Diana). Firstly, I studied the combinatorial structure and relevance to receivers ofcombined calls in of both species using playback experiments. Results confirmed the presence of asuffixation mechanism reducing the emergency of danger signaled by calls of male Campbell’smonkeys. Also, they showed that combined calls of females Diana monkeys convey linearlyinformation via their two units, which signal respectively caller’s emotional state and identity.Secondly, focusing on the context associated with the emission of simple and combined femaleCampbell’s monkey calls, results revealed flexible use of combination reflecting the immediate need toremain cryptic (i.e. simple calls) or to signal caller’s identity (i.e. combined calls). Finally, I comparedfemales’ communication systems of both species to identify their similarities and differences. Aspredicted by their close phylogenetic relatedness, their repertoires are mostly based on homologousstructures. However, the females differ strongly in their use of those structures. In particular, the greatnumber of calls combined by Diana monkeys increases considerably their vocal repertoire compared toCampbell’s monkeys. Given that the combinations are non-random, meaningful to receivers and usedflexibly with the context, I propose a parallel with a rudimentary form of semantic morphosyntax anddiscuss more generally the possible existence of similar capacities in other non-human animals.