Kalahari Meerkat Project, Kuruman River Reserve, Northern Cape, South Africa.
Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
PLoS One. 2020 Aug 27;15(8):e0238313. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0238313. eCollection 2020.
The efficiency of communication between animals is determined by the perception range of signals. With changes in the environment, signal transmission between a sender and a receiver can be influenced both directly, where the signal's propagation quality itself is affected, and indirectly where the senders or receivers' behaviour is impaired, impacting for example the distance between them. Here we investigated how meerkats (Suricata suricatta) in the Kalahari Desert adjust to these challenges in the context of maintaining group cohesion through contact calls. We found that meerkats changed their calling rate when signal transmission was affected indirectly due to increased dispersion of group members as during a drought, but not under typical wet conditions, when signal transmission was directly affected due to higher vegetation density. Instead under these wetter conditions, meerkats remained within proximity to each other. Overall, both direct and indirect environmental effects on signal perception resulted in an increased probability of groups splitting. In conclusion, we provide evidence that social animals can flexibly adjust their vocal coordination behaviour to cope with direct and indirect effects of the environment on signal perception, but these adjustments have limitations.
动物之间的沟通效率取决于信号的感知范围。随着环境的变化，发送者和接收者之间的信号传输可能会受到直接影响，其中信号的传播质量本身会受到影响，也可能会受到间接影响，例如发送者或接收者的行为受到损害，从而影响它们之间的距离。在这里，我们研究了卡拉哈里沙漠中的猫鼬（Suricata suricatta）如何在通过接触叫声保持群体凝聚力的背景下应对这些挑战。我们发现，当由于干旱导致群体成员分散而间接影响信号传输时，猫鼬会改变它们的叫声频率，但在典型的潮湿条件下不会，因为信号传输会因植被密度较高而受到直接影响。相反，在这些更潮湿的条件下，猫鼬仍然彼此靠近。总的来说，信号感知的直接和间接环境影响都会增加群体分裂的可能性。总之，我们提供的证据表明，社交动物可以灵活地调整它们的发声协调行为，以应对信号感知的直接和间接环境影响，但这些调整是有限的。
