biostudies-literatureUnknown22(5)Roberts AIA key challenge for primates is coordinating behaviour with conspecifics in large, complex social groups. Gestures play a key role in this process and chimpanzees show considerable flexibility communicating through single gestures, sequences of gestures interspersed with periods of response waiting (persistence), and rapid sequences where gestures are made in quick succession, too rapid for the response waiting to have occurred. The previous studies examined behavioural reactions to single gestures and sequences, but whether this complexity is associated with more complex sociality at the level of the dyad partner and the group as a whole is not well understood. We used social network analysis to examine how the production of single gestures and sequences of gestures was related to the durAnimal cognition605-618https://www.ebi.ac.uk/biostudies/studies/S-EPMC6689904biostudies-literaturePersistence in gestural communication predicts sociality in wild chimpanzees.PMC6689904Roberts SGBRoberts AIfalsePersistence in gestural communication predicts sociality in wild chimpanzees.A key challenge for primates is coordinating behaviour with conspecifics in large, complex social groups. Gestures play a key role in this process and chimpanzees show considerable flexibility communicating through single gestures, sequences of gestures interspersed with periods of response waiting (persistence), and rapid sequences where gestures are made in quick succession, too rapid for the response waiting to have occurred. The previous studies examined behavioural reactions to single gestures and sequences, but whether this complexity is associated with more complex sociality at the level of the dyad partner and the group as a whole is not well understood. We used social network analysis to examine how the production of single gestures and sequences of gestures was related to the dur2019-01-01T00:00:00Z2019 Sep2025-04-27T04:15:02.249Z2019-08-28T07:02:49ZS-EPMC66899043033841910.1007/s10071-018-1219-6