Sex dimorphic phrase combinatorics in the song of the indris (Indri indri)
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Animal Behavior, Zoology
- Keywords
- Primates, syntax, singing, lemurs, Madagascar, sex differences, long distance calls, loud calls
- Copyright
- © 2019 Zanoli et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2019. Sex dimorphic phrase combinatorics in the song of the indris (Indri indri) PeerJ Preprints 7:e27917v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27917v1
Abstract
We used a logic distance to investigate intra and inter-individual variation in the phrase combinatorics of a singing primate, the indri, which inhabits the montane rain forests of Madagascar. Indris combine long notes, short single notes, and phrases consisting of two, three, four, or five units with slightly descending frequency. We calculated the similarity across different individual songs using the Levenshtein distance. We then analyzed the degree of similarity within and between individuals and found that: i) the phrase structure of songs varied between reproductive males and females; ii) male contributions to the song are overall more similar to those of other males; iii) male contributions are more stereotyped than females' ones. The picture emerging from phrase combinatorics in the indris is in agreement with previous findings of rhythmic features and repertoire size, which also suggested that female songs are potentially more distinctive than those of males.
Author Comment
This is intended for the second international workshop on Vocal Interactivity in-and-between Humans, Animals and Robots (VIHAR 2019) collection.
Supplemental Information
Male and female strings
Each line indicates the sequence of the descending phrases (DP) given during a particular song. The number indicated the number of units in the phrase.