To drum or not to drum: Selectivity in tree buttress drumming by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) in the Nimba Mountains, Guinea.

Autor: Fitzgerald M; Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA.; Wildlife Research Center, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan., Willems EP; Department of Anthropology, University of Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland., Gaspard Soumah A; Institut de Recherche Environnementale de Bossou, Bossou, Republic of Guinea., Matsuzawa T; Department of Pedagogy, Chubu Gakuin University, Gifu, Japan.; Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA., Koops K; Department of Anthropology, University of Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland.; Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: American journal of primatology [Am J Primatol] 2022 Jul; Vol. 84 (7), pp. e23382. Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 Apr 05.
DOI: 10.1002/ajp.23382
Abstrakt: Chimpanzees live in fission-fusion social organizations, which means that party size, composition, and spatial distribution are constantly in flux. Moreover, chimpanzees use a remarkably extensive repertoire of vocal and nonvocal forms of communication, thought to help convey information in such a socially and spatially dynamic setting. One proposed form of nonvocal communication in chimpanzees is buttress drumming, in which an individual hits a tree buttress with its hands and/or feet, thereby producing a low-frequency acoustic signal. It is often presumed that this behavior functions to communicate over long distances and is, therefore, goal-oriented. If so, we would expect chimpanzees to exhibit selectivity in the choice of trees and buttresses used in buttress drumming. Selectivity is a key attribute of many other goal-directed chimpanzee behaviors, such as nut-cracking and ant dipping. Here, we investigate whether chimpanzees at the Seringbara study site in the Nimba Mountains, Guinea, West Africa, show selectivity in their buttress drumming behavior. Our results indicate that Seringbara chimpanzees are more likely to use larger trees and select buttresses that are thinner and have a greater surface area. These findings imply that tree buttress drumming is not a random act, but rather goal-oriented and requires knowledge of suitable trees and buttresses. Our results also point to long-distance communication as a probable function of buttress drumming based on selectivity for buttress characteristics likely to impact sound propagation. This study provides a foundation for further assessing the cognitive underpinnings and functions of buttress drumming in wild chimpanzees.
(© 2022 The Authors. American Journal of Primatology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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