Berthet Mélissa, Mesbahi Geoffrey, Cäsar Cristiane, Zuberbühler Klaus
Institute of Biology, University of Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel, Switzerland.
Department of Comparative Language Science, University of Zurich, Affolternstrasse 56, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland.
Behav Ecol Sociobiol. 2022;76(11):143. doi: 10.1007/s00265-022-03250-1. Epub 2022 Oct 3.
Predator presentation experiments are widely used to investigate animal alarm vocalizations. They usually involve presentations of predator models or playbacks of predator calls, but it remains unclear whether the two paradigms provide similar results, a major limitation when investigating animal syntactic and semantic capacities. Here, we investigate whether visual and acoustic predator cues elicit different vocal reactions in black-fronted titi monkeys (). We exposed six groups of wild titi monkeys to visual models or playbacks of vocalizations of raptor or felid. We characterized each group's vocal reactions using sequence parameters known to reliably encode predatory events in this species. We found that titi monkeys' vocal reactions varied with the predator species but also with the experimental paradigm: while vocal reactions to raptor vocalizations and models were similar, felid vocalizations elicited heterogeneous, different reactions from that given to felid models. We argue that subjects are not familiar with felid vocalizations, because of a lack of learning opportunities due to the silent behaviour of felids. We discuss the implication of these findings for the semantic capacities of titi monkeys. We finally recommend that playbacks of predator vocalizations should not be used in isolation but in combination with visual model presentations, to allow fine-grained analyses of the communication system of prey species.
It is common to present prey species with predator models or predator calls to study their vocal reactions. The two paradigms are often used independently, but it remains unclear whether they provide similar results. Here, we studied the vocal reactions of titi monkeys to calls and models of raptors and felids. We show that titi monkeys seem to recognize the vocalizations of raptors but not those of felids. The study of the vocal reactions emitted when titi monkeys cannot clearly identify the threat allows us to draw accurate hypotheses about the meaning of titi monkeys' alarm utterances. We argue that playbacks of predator calls should be used in conjunction with model presentations, which can allow us to better investigate the information and the structure of the alarm systems.
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00265-022-03250-1.
捕食者呈现实验被广泛用于研究动物的警报叫声。这些实验通常涉及展示捕食者模型或播放捕食者叫声，但目前尚不清楚这两种范式是否能提供相似的结果，而这是研究动物句法和语义能力时的一个主要限制。在此，我们研究视觉和听觉捕食者线索是否会引发黑额伶猴不同的叫声反应。我们让六组野生伶猴接触猛禽或猫科动物的视觉模型或叫声回放。我们使用已知能可靠编码该物种捕食事件的序列参数来描述每组的叫声反应。我们发现，伶猴的叫声反应不仅因捕食者种类而异，还因实验范式而异：虽然对猛禽叫声和模型的叫声反应相似，但猫科动物的叫声引发了异质性的、与对猫科动物模型的反应不同的反应。我们认为，由于猫科动物行为安静，缺乏学习机会，所以实验对象对猫科动物的叫声不熟悉。我们讨论了这些发现对伶猴语义能力的影响。我们最终建议，捕食者叫声的回放不应单独使用，而应与视觉模型展示相结合，以便对猎物物种的通讯系统进行细致分析。
向猎物物种展示捕食者模型或捕食者叫声以研究它们的叫声反应很常见。这两种范式经常被独立使用，但它们是否能提供相似的结果仍不清楚。在此，我们研究了伶猴对猛禽和猫科动物的叫声及模型的叫声反应。我们表明，伶猴似乎能识别猛禽的叫声，但不能识别猫科动物的叫声。对伶猴在无法清晰识别威胁时发出的叫声反应进行研究，使我们能够对伶猴警报叫声的含义得出准确假设。我们认为，捕食者叫声的回放应与模型展示结合使用，这样能让我们更好地研究警报系统的信息和结构。
网络版包含可在10.1007/s00265-022-03250-1获取的补充材料。
