Indulgence of dominant primates in vocal communication!

Avani Dave, BSc Life Sciences

Background: 

A “multiple levels of analysis” method has been proposed frequently in the effort to explain the evolution of human and non-human primates’ behaviour. In practice, most studies focus on a single level of analysis, despite the fact that such an approach needs investigations to cover multiple levels of a system (e.g., individual, family, group, species) (e.g., variation between individuals or across species). Several revolutionary theories claim that the evolution of communication and language may be explained in terms of the social environment’s limits and pressures. Empirical studies that look at patterns of the association at several levels of analysis will likely be crucial in geology. Animal communication has long been assumed to be hampered by the strains and restrictions of social interactions. However, the lack of directly comparable approaches across many levels of the study limits our knowledge of how the type and quality of social connections relate to the usage and evolution of communication. A recent study by Kavanagh, E., et al used observational data from 111 wild groups representing 26 non-human primate species to see if vocal communication is related to dominance style. The degree to which a dominance hierarchy is enforced usually ranges from “despotic” to “tolerant”.

Results & Discussion:

The findings demonstrated that dominating subjects who were more tolerant vocalized at a higher rate than their dictatorial counterparts at the individual level. This suggests that in a partnership, tolerance may put pressure on the dominant spouse to communicate more during social interactions. Despotic species, on the other hand, had a broader repertoire of hierarchy-related vocalizations than their tolerant counterparts at the species level. Overall, the data indicate that the strictness of individual and species dominance relationships provides critical context for understanding primate vocal usage and evolution. It was discovered that dominance style had varied effects on voice usage for dominant and subordinate partners, emphasizing the need of looking at both sides of a dyadic relationship individually. Individuals who experienced more symmetrical aggressiveness with subordinate partners vocalized at a higher rate, according to our findings (an indication of greater tolerance). This is in line with our hypothesis that tolerant people have a stronger need to communicate in order to handle interactions with more unpredictable outcomes, affiliate with a broader group of people, or request resources and services, rather than depending on a higher dominant rank and/or sheer force. This study allows us to interpret the results with the proviso that more primate species-specific validation of dominant style measures is required to validate our findings.

Conclusion:

During the course of the study, the researchers assessed dominance style for the first time in many of these species. They found evidence that the dominance style was related to vocal communication at both the individual and species levels, using a large behavioural dataset from 26 primate species. The resulting behavioural data can be used to investigate other potential correlates of dominance style, such as cognitive or ecological characteristics, as well as the relationship between dominance style and communication using a multimodal approach. If we want to understand how social behaviour affects communication evolution, we need to look at it from a variety of perspectives across different taxa, and we need to go beyond a narrow focus on group size by including measurements of the nature of social interactions, such as dominant style. Overall, these findings pave the way for more investigation into this potential avenue in the future.

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References: Kavanagh, E., Street, S. E., Angwela, F. O., Bergman, T. J., Blaszczyk, M. B., Bolt, L. M., Briseño-Jaramillo, M., Brown, M., Chen-Kraus, C., Clay, Z., Coye, C., Thompson, M. E., Estrada, A., Fichtel, C., Fruth, B., Gamba, M., Giacoma, C., Graham, K. E., Green, S., Slocombe, K. (2021). Dominance style is a key predictor of vocal use and evolution across nonhuman primates. Royal Society Open Science, 8(7), 210873. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.210873

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Author Info:

Avani Dave is currently in the final year of her bachelor’s degree, majoring in Life Sciences. Holding a good academic and extra-curricular record, she is on a constant journey of acquiring exposure in her field of interest while simultaneously not limiting herself to just that. Avani likes studying Diseases and Syndromes and everything under this umbrella! That being said, she is adept at working across departments and promises to deliver.

LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/avani-dave/

Publications in BioXone:

• Dave, A. (2021). Did the “Good cholesterol” get even better? BioXone. https://bioxone.in/news/worldnews/did-the-good-cholesterol-get-even-better/
• Dave, A. (2021). Unveiling the features of within-host dynamics in malaria. BioXone. https://bioxone.in/news/worldnews/unveiling-the-features-of-within-host-dynamics-in-malaria/
• Dave, A. (2021). A dash of sugar kelp for better health. BioXone. https://bioxone.in/news/worldnews/a-dash-of-sugar-kelp-for-better-health/