Abstract
Hearing is a crucial element of primate behavior and ecology. Beginning in 1969, traditional behavioral testing methods produced comparable audiograms for five strepsirhine taxa. Variation in this relatively small data set can be explained in part by head size, but relationships with social behavior and ecology have been elusive. Recently, with the use of auditory brainstem response (ABR) methods, standardized audiograms have been published for eleven strepsirhine species. Within this data set, social complexity explains a significant amount of the variation in auditory sensitivity, possibly because sociality favored an enhanced ability to detect conspecific vocalizations such as high frequency alarm calls. These findings shed light on the comparative biology of primate hearing and enable a reconstruction of the ancestral strepsirhine audiogram.
Resume
L’audition est un élément essentiel de l’éco-éthologie des primates. Depuis 1969, les méthodes comportementales utilisées pour obtenir des audiogrammes comparables ont produits des résultats pour cinq taxa de strepsirhines. Les variations observées sur ce relativement petit échantillon s’expliquent en partie par l’effet de la taille de la tête, mais leurs relations avec la socio-écologie de ces animaux restent mystérieuses. Récemment, avec l’utilisation de la méthode de la Réponse Evoquée Auditive du tronc cérébral (REA), des audiogrammes standardisés ont été publiés pour onze espèces de strepsirhines. La variation de sensibilité auditive observée dans ce jeu de données s’explique par la complexité sociale, peut-être parce que la socialité favorise une capacité accrue à détecter les vocalisations spécifiques comme les alarmes émises à haute fréquence. Ces résultats éclairent la biologie comparée de l’audition des primates, et permettent de reconstruire un audiogramme ancestral des strepsirhines.
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Acknowledgments
I thank Nathaniel J. Dominy and Björn M. Siemers inviting me to participate in a symposium on the sensory and cognitive ecology of foraging in prosimians in the Prosimians 2007 International Congress. I thank Judith Masters and Fabien Génin for inviting me to contribute the present chapter. I am grateful to Nathaniel J. Dominy, the editors, and an anonymous reviewer for constructive comments.
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Ramsier, M.A. (2012). Evolution of Auditory Sensitivity Among Strepsirhine Primates. In: Masters, J., Gamba, M., Génin, F. (eds) Leaping Ahead. Developments in Primatology: Progress and Prospects. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4511-1_29
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