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. 2022 Aug 22;12(16):2149.
doi: 10.3390/ani12162149.

Individual Variation in the Use of Acoustic Signals to Coordinate Group Movements among Tibetan Macaques (Macaca thibetana)

Meng-Meng Chen  1   2 , Yu-Heng Zhang  1   2 , Yi-Mei Tai  1   2 , Xi Wang  1   2
Affiliations

Individual Variation in the Use of Acoustic Signals to Coordinate Group Movements among Tibetan Macaques (Macaca thibetana)

Meng-Meng Chen et al. Animals (Basel). .

Abstract

To maintain group cohesion, social animals need to coordinate their actions during group movements. Several species use vocalizations to communicate with each other during coordination. However, the process of vocal communication and its influence in collective decision making is not clear. We studied a group of free-range Tibetan macaques (Macaca thibetana) at Huangshan, China, and recorded acoustic signals during their group movements. It was found that three kinds of sounds were used in their movements. Group movements with vocalizations recruited more participants than the movements without sound. Moreover, during group departures, individuals in the front emitted a higher frequency of vocalization than individuals in the rear. Sex and social centrality both had a significant influence on vocalizations. Social centrality indicates the degree of proximity relations between two individuals in a social network. Females and individuals with high social centrality emitted more sound in group movements. However, social rank and the number of relatives did not affect the emission of sound. These results suggest that the function of calls in collective movements relates to coordinating group movements. This study provides an insight into the association of acoustic communication with collective decision making.

Keywords: Tibetan macaques; collective movements; decision making; group coordination; social networks; vocal communication.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Representative spectrogram vocalizations. (a) Coo; (b) leap coo; (c) bark.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The number of participants in group movements with or without vocal communication.
Figure 3
Figure 3
The correlation between the joining order index and vocal frequency during collective movements. The horizontal axis represents the joining orders of individuals: the higher the index, the earlier the individual joins the movement. The vertical axis represents the vocal frequency of individuals. The larger the vocal frequency, the more frequently the individual vocalizes.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Eigenvector centrality coefficients for group members within the social network. Nodes indicate individuals; females and males are marked in orange and blue, respectively; the labels indicate the name of an individual; the size of the node indicates the value of eigenvector centrality; the thickness of links indicates the degree of proximity relations; the pair of numbers in the bracket represents social rank and number of relatives, respectively.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Differences in vocal frequency between males and females during collective movements. The vertical axis represents the vocal frequency of individuals. The larger the vocal frequency, the more frequently the individual vocalizes.
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