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Villa-Larenas F, Llorente M, Liebal K, Amici F. Gestural communication in wild spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi). Anim Cogn 2024; 27:18. [PMID: 38429467 PMCID: PMC10907450 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-024-01854-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/14/2023] [Revised: 10/10/2023] [Accepted: 10/20/2023] [Indexed: 03/03/2024]
Abstract
Gestures play a central role in the communication systems of several animal families, including primates. In this study, we provide a first assessment of the gestural systems of a Platyrrhine species, Geoffroy's spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi). We observed a wild group of 52 spider monkeys and assessed the distribution of visual and tactile gestures in the group, the size of individual repertoires and the intentionality and effectiveness of individuals' gestural production. Our results showed that younger spider monkeys were more likely than older ones to use tactile gestures. In contrast, we found no inter-individual differences in the probability of producing visual gestures. Repertoire size did not vary with age, but the probability of accounting for recipients' attentional state was higher for older monkeys than for younger ones, especially for gestures in the visual modality. Using vocalizations right before the gesture increased the probability of gesturing towards attentive recipients and of receiving a response, although age had no effect on the probability of gestures being responded. Overall, our study provides first evidence of gestural production in a Platyrrhine species, and confirms this taxon as a valid candidate for research on animal communication.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Miquel Llorente
- Fundació UdG: Innovació I Formació, Universitat de Girona, Girona, Spain
- Departament de Psicologia, Facultat d'Educació I Psicologia, Universitat de Girona, Girona, Spain
| | - Katja Liebal
- Human Biology and Primate Cognition, Institute of Biology, Faculty of Life Science, Leipzig University, Talstraße 33, 04103, Leipzig, Germany
- Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Federica Amici
- Human Biology and Primate Cognition, Institute of Biology, Faculty of Life Science, Leipzig University, Talstraße 33, 04103, Leipzig, Germany.
- Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
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Come with me: experimental evidence for intentional recruitment in Tonkean macaques. Anim Cogn 2022; 25:1505-1515. [PMID: 35570243 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-022-01631-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/02/2021] [Revised: 04/20/2022] [Accepted: 04/22/2022] [Indexed: 11/01/2022]
Abstract
Recruitment is a process by which animals can initiate collective movements: the action of an individual prompts conspecifics to follow. Although it has been hypothesized that animals may be able to intentionally recruit others, there is no experimental evidence of this to date. We tested this hypothesis in two pairs of Tonkean macaques in a situation requiring the subjects to find a food site in a 2800 m2 area, and approach the site together to release rewards. Each subject was informed of the location of either highly or little-valued rewards. We recorded attention-action sequences in which an individual checked that his partner was attending to him before moving, and also simple departures (i.e., not preceded by eye contact). Analyses showed that sequences were more often followed by recruitment and leading the partner to a baited site than simple departures were. Moreover, subjects used attention-action sequences more frequently when informed of the location of the highly valued reward. This may be explained by the fact that the more motivated they were by the expected rewards, the more likely they were to actively recruit their partner. No such effect was found when subjects performed simple departures. We conclude that Tonkean macaques are capable of intentional recruitment because the subjects voluntarily behaved with the goal of influencing their partner's movement: they checked that the partner was paying attention to them and prompted him to follow by moving. Such performances can be accounted for either by associative learning or by intentional communication.
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Mikula P, Jokimäki J, Kaisanlahti-Jokimäki ML, Markó G, Morelli F, Møller AP, Szakony S, Yosef R, Albrecht T, Tryjanowski P. Face mask-wear did not affect large-scale patterns in escape and alertness of urban and rural birds during the COVID-19 pandemic. THE SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT 2021; 793:148672. [PMID: 34328996 PMCID: PMC8223025 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.148672] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/07/2021] [Revised: 06/14/2021] [Accepted: 06/21/2021] [Indexed: 04/14/2023]
Abstract
Actions taken against the COVID-19 pandemic have dramatically affected many aspects of human activity, giving us a unique opportunity to study how wildlife responds to the human-induced rapid environmental changes. The wearing of face masks, widely adopted to prevent pathogen transmission, represents a novel element in many parts of the world where wearing a face mask was rare before the COVID-19 outbreak. During September 2020-March 2021, we conducted large-scale multi-species field experiments to evaluate whether face mask-use in public places elicits a behavioural response in birds by comparing their escape and alert responses when approached by a researcher with or without a face mask in four European countries (Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, and Poland) and Israel. We also tested whether these patterns differed between urban and rural sites. We employed Bayesian generalized linear mixed models (with phylogeny and site as random factors) controlling for a suite of covariates and found no association between the face mask-wear and flight initiation distance, alert distance, and fly-away distance, respectively, neither in urban nor in rural birds. However, we found that all three distances were strongly and consistently associated with habitat type and starting distance, with birds showing earlier escape and alert behaviour and longer distances fled when approached in rural than in urban habitats and from longer initial distances. Our results indicate that wearing face masks did not trigger observable changes in antipredator behaviour across the Western Palearctic birds, and our data did not support the role of habituation in explaining this pattern.
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Affiliation(s)
- Peter Mikula
- Institute of Vertebrate Biology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Květná 8, 603 65 Brno, Czech Republic.
| | - Jukka Jokimäki
- Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, PO Box 122, 96101 Rovaniemi, Finland
| | | | - Gábor Markó
- Behavioural Ecology Group, Department of Systematic Zoology and Ecology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Pázmány Péter sétány 1/C, 1117 Budapest, Hungary; Department of Plant Pathology, Institute of Plant Protection, Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Ménesi út 44, 1118 Budapest, Hungary
| | - Federico Morelli
- Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcká 129, 165 00 Praha 6, Czech Republic; Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Zielona Góra, Prof. Z. Szafrana St. 1, PL-65-516 Zielona Góra, Poland
| | - Anders Pape Møller
- Ecologie Systématique Evolution, Université Paris-Sud, CNRS, AgroParisTech, Université Paris-Saclay, Orsay Cedex F-91405, France; Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Sciences and Ecological Engineering, College of Life Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
| | - Sára Szakony
- Department of Ecology, Institute of Biology, University of Veterinary Medicine Budapest, Rottenbiller u. 50, Budapest H-1077, Hungary
| | - Reuven Yosef
- Ben Gurion University of the Negev Eilat Campus, P. O. Box 272, Eilat 88000, Israel
| | - Tomáš Albrecht
- Institute of Vertebrate Biology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Květná 8, 603 65 Brno, Czech Republic; Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Viničná 7, Praha 12844, Czech Republic
| | - Piotr Tryjanowski
- Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcká 129, 165 00 Praha 6, Czech Republic; Department of Zoology, Poznań University of Life Sciences, Wojska Polskiego 71C, 60-625 Poznań, Poland
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