Abstract
Neighbour-stranger discrimination plays a crucial role in territorial animals and is expressed as either the dear enemy phenomenon or the nasty neighbour effect. Previous evidence showed that the size of intruding groups affected the expression of neighbour-stranger discrimination. However, few studies have compared neighbour-stranger discrimination between individual-level and group-level intrusions in conspecifics. In this study, we used playback experiments to investigate whether the western black crested gibbon (Nomascus concolor) discriminates intruding neighbours from strangers via vocal signal and explore the effect of intruder type (individual versus group) on neighbour-stranger discrimination. We found that the focal gibbons responded more intensively to neighbours versus strange intruders with shorter movement delay time and longer counter-singing duration. Furthermore, the intruder type had a pronounced influence on subjects’ response intensity. The focal gibbons reacted with faster movement velocity and shorter locomotor duration to individual intruders than to group intruders. Our results provide the first empirical evidence for the nasty neighbour effect in Hylobatidae. These results also suggest that group intruders are not necessarily more threatening than individual intruders, and that the perceived threat posed by intruders is affected by ecological factors and social contexts.
Significance statement
Neighbour-stranger discrimination (NSD) is widespread in territorial animals. However, few studies have compared the differences in NSD between individual-level and group-level intrusions in conspecifics. We studied the effect of intruder type (individual versus group) on NSD dynamics using acoustic playback experiments in free-ranging western black crested gibbons (Nomascus concolor). We provide the first experimental evidence for the nasty neighbour effect in Hylobatidae. Our findings support the threat level hypothesis and suggest that the threat level of the intruder depends on ecological factors and social contexts. We also suggest that group intruders do not necessarily have a higher threat level than individual intruders, at least among the western black crested gibbons.
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All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this manuscript (and its supplementary information files).
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Acknowledgements
We thank the staff of the Jingdong Nature Reserve Management Bureau for their kind support and assistance in fieldwork. We appreciate our field assistants, Mr. Shiming Xiong, Yehua Liu, and Youfu Xiong, for their kind help. We appreciate Dr. Pengfei Fan for his valuable suggestions. Special thanks to Xue Chen and Zhechang Hu for helping edit pictures. We are grateful to Dr. Kenneth Otieno Onditi for helping improve the English grammar. We are grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments to improve the manuscript.
Funding
This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (# 31570386), Wuliang-Ailao Mountains Wildlife Observation and Research Station of Yunnan Province (# 202105AM070004), and Kunming Branch of Chinese Academy of Sciences for Population and Habitat Assessment of Western Black Crested Gibbons.
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XN: conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, investigation, writing–original draft, writing–review and editing. ZG: conceptualization, formal analysis, visualization, writing–review and editing. WN: conceptualization, methodology, investigation. XL: formal analysis, visualization. GS: resources. QN: resources. GL: investigation. XJ: conceptualization, methodology, writing–review and editing, supervision, project administration, funding acquisition.
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The fieldwork was permitted by the Jingdong Management and Protection Bureau of Wuliang-Ailao Mountains National Nature Reserve. The study protocols were entirely non-invasive, and no subjects were captured during the experiments. All experimental procedures complied with the ASAB/ABS (2020) guidelines for ethical treatment of animals.
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Niu, X., Guan, Z., Ning, W. et al. Experimental evidence for nasty neighbour effect in western black crested gibbons (Nomascus concolor). Behav Ecol Sociobiol 77, 33 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-023-03309-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-023-03309-7