By combining different call types, such as barks with screams, individuals have the potential to vastly increase the range of information that can be decoded by listeners. Few animal studies, however, have examined the information content of call combinations compared with the information conveyed by each call singularly. We examined several aspects of call combinations in the repertoire of wild chimpanzees in the Taï Forest, Ivory Coast, including the types of combinations, the contexts and possible functions and compared these with the use of single calls. Almost half of all vocalisations produced by the Taï chimpanzees occurred in combination with other vocalisations or with drumming. A total of 88 different types of combinations were used. Single calls and call combinations were each produced in specific contexts. The contexts in which six of ten combinations were produced differed from the contexts of at least one of the component calls. The contexts in which the combinations were produced varied from the component calls in five different ways, three having potentially novel functions. Two of the three may have an additive function, such that two pieces of information can be conveyed simultaneously, increasing message complexity. This analysis clearly shows that call combinations are an important part of chimpanzee communication. The implications with regard to the evolution of human language are discussed. Testing of the information conveyed by single calls and of call combinations, using playback experiments, is advocated.
Behaviour publishes original research pursuing Tinbergen's four questions and questions resulting from the interrelationship among the four. In addition, the editorial board encourages reviews of behavioural biology that illuminate emergent trends and new directions in behavioural research. Niko Tinbergen (1907-1988) defined 4 questions for research in behavioral biology: Proximate causation of behaviour: 1. How does an animal use its sensory and motor abilities to activate and modify its behaviour patterns? (physiological mechanisms) 2. How does an animal's behaviour change during its growth, especially in response to the experiences that it has while maturing? (ontogeny of development) Ultimate causation of behaviour: 3. How does the behaviour promote an animal's ability to survive and reproduce? (adaptation) 4. How does an animal's behaviour compare with that of other closely related species, and what does this tell us about the origins of its behavior and the changes that have occurred during the history of the species? (phylogeny) Niko Tinbergen shared, with Konrad Lorenz and Karl von Frisch, the 1973 Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology for contributions to the study of behavioural biology. Tinbergen was at heart an experimentalist who, more than Lorenz and von Frisch, applied the scientific method to the field of animal and human behaviour. It is his experimental approach to the study of behaviour that lasts to this day. That is why Tinbergen listed questions and not answers (theorems or laws). The answers (or at least some of them) are published monthly in Behaviour, the journal Tinbergen co-founded with W. H. Thorpe in 1948.
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Behaviour
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