Abstract
Vocal and gestural sequences of several primates have been found to conform to two general principles of information compression: the compensation between the duration of a construct and that of its components (Menzerath–Altmann law) and an inverse relationship between signal duration and its occurrence (Zipf’s law of abbreviation). Even though Zipf’s law of brevity has been proposed as a universal in animal communication, evidence on non-human primate vocal behavior conformity to linguistic laws is still debated, and information on strepsirrhine primates is lacking. We analyzed the vocal behavior of the unique singing lemur species (Indri indri) to assess whether the song of the species shows evidence for compression. As roars have a chaotic structure that impedes the recognition of each individual utterance, and long notes are usually given by males, we focused on the core part of the song (i.e., the descending phrases, composed of two–six units). Our results indicate that indris’ songs conform to Zipf’s and Menzerath–Altmann linguistic laws. Indeed, shorter phrases are more likely to be included in the song, and units’ duration decrease at the increase of the size of the phrases. We also found that, despite a sexual dimorphism in the duration of both units and phrases, these laws characterize sequences of both males and females. Overall, we provide the first evidence for a trade-off between signal duration and occurrence in the vocal behavior of a strepsirrhine species, suggesting that selective pressures for vocal compression are more ancestral than previously assumed within primates.
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Data used in this study can be found at https://github.com/sciabola/ANCO2021_DATA
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This research was supported by Università degli Studi di Torino and by grants from the Parco Natura Viva—Garda Zoological Park. We are grateful to Cesare Avesani Zaborra and Caterina Spiezio for their support. We also thank the GERP (Groupe d’Étude et de Recherche sur les Primates de Madagascar) for the field logistics organization and to both field guides and assistants helping during the data collection.
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DV, MG, and LF conceived the study design and the methodology; VT, DV, CDG, AZ, and TR collected the data; DV and MG conducted the formal analysis and investigation; DV wrote the manuscript, all authors edited the manuscript and approved its final version.
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Research permits for this research have been granted from Direction des Eaux et Forêts and ‘Madagascar National Parks’ (formerly ANGAP). 2004: N190/MINENV.EF/SG/DGEF/ DPB/SCBLF/RECH; 2005: N197/MINENV.EF/SG/DGEF/DPB/SCBLF/RECH; 2006: N172/06/ MINENV.EF/SG/DGEF/DPB/SCBLF; 2007: N0220/07/MINENV.EF/SG/DGEF/DPSAP/SSE; 2008: N258/08/MEFT/SG/ DGEF/DSAP/SSE; 2009: N243/09/MEF/SG/DGF/DCB.SAP/SLRSE; 2010: N118/10/MEF/SG/DGF/DCB.SAP/SCBSE and 293/10/MEF/SG/DGF/DCB.SAP/SCB; 2011: N274/11/MEF/SG/DGF/DCB.SAP/SCB; 2012: N245/12/MEF/ SG/DGF/DCB.SAP/SCB; 2013: permit not required as data collection was performed by Malagasy citizens only. 2014: N066/14/MEF/SG/DGF/DCB.SAP/SCB; 2015: N180/15/MEEMF/SG/DGF/DAPT/SCBT; 2016: N98/16/MEEMF/SG/DGF/DAPT/SCB.Re and N217/16/MEEMF/SG/DGF/DSAP/SCB.Re; 2017: 73/17/MEEF/SG/DGF/DSAP/SCB.RE; 2018: 91/18/MEEF/SG/DGF/DSAP/SCB.Re; 2019: 118/19/MEDD/SG/DGEF/DSAP/DGRNE and 284/19/MEDD/SG/DGEF/DSAP/DGRNE; 2019/2020: 338/19/MEDD/SG/DGEF/DSAP/DGRNE. Approval for observational researches and for studies that do not involve animal handling are not required by our institutional committees.
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Valente, D., De Gregorio, C., Favaro, L. et al. Linguistic laws of brevity: conformity in Indri indri. Anim Cogn 24, 897–906 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-021-01495-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-021-01495-3