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

Fitzgerald, Maegan; Willems, Erik P; Gaspard Soumah, Aly; Matsuzawa, Tetsuro; Koops, Kathelijne (2022). To drum or not to drum: Selectivity in tree buttress drumming by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) in the Nimba Mountains, Guinea. American Journal of Primatology, 84(7):e23382.

Abstract

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.

Additional indexing

Item Type:Journal Article, refereed, original work
Communities & Collections:07 Faculty of Science > Department of Evolutionary Anthropology
Dewey Decimal Classification:300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology
Scopus Subject Areas:Life Sciences > Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Life Sciences > Animal Science and Zoology
Uncontrolled Keywords:Animal Science and Zoology, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Language:English
Date:1 July 2022
Deposited On:20 Jan 2023 08:40
Last Modified:28 Oct 2024 02:42
Publisher:Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, Inc.
ISSN:0275-2565
OA Status:Hybrid
Free access at:Publisher DOI. An embargo period may apply.
Publisher DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.23382
Project Information:
  • Funder: Stichting Lucie Burgers
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  • Funder: Newnham College, University of Cambridge
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  • Funder: Gates Cambridge Trust
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  • Funder: Homerton College, University of Cambridge
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  • Content: Published Version
  • Language: English
  • Licence: Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

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