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

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

SUBMITTER: Fitzgerald M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9540414 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature