Abstract
The indri’s song is composed of a series of roars uttered simultaneously by several members of a group, followed by a long modulated howl. The latter part consists of overlapping or successive notes emitted by different individuals. Previous qualitative studies have described four different kinds of notes. We provide the first quantitative acoustic investigation of the indri’s song repertoire. After visual inspection of fundamental frequency (F0) modulation and duration in 30 songs and 1995 notes emitted by 30 individuals, we distinguished nine different unit types (roar + 8 modulated units). For these nine putative types, we measured six F0-related and three temporal parameters, which were then subjected to multivariate statistical analysis. Both discriminant analyses and cross-validation procedures classified the vocal types correctly with high reliability.
Resume
Le chant de l’Indri est composé de séries de rugissements émis simultanément par plusieurs membres d’un groupe, suivi d’un long hurlement modulé. Cette dernière partie est composée de notes émises par différent individus qui se suivent ou se chevauchent. Des études précédentes ont décrit quatre types de notes sur des bases qualitatives. Nous présentons la première analyse acoustique quantitative du répertoire vocale des notes du chant de l’Indri. Après un examen visuel de 30 chants et 1995 notes émis par 30 individus, nous décrivons neuf différents types d’unités (rugissement + 8 unités modulées), en examinant la modulation et la durée de la Fréquence Fondamentale (F0). Pour ces 9 hypothétiques types, nous avons mesuré six paramètres liés à la F0 et six paramètres temporels, analysés à l’aide d’une méthode multi-variée, afin de valider notre hypothèse. L’analyse discriminante et l’analyse par validation croisée ont toutes deux classifié la plupart des vocalisations dans les catégories attendues.
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Aknowledgments
Our research was supported by the Università degli Studi di Torino and by grants from the Parco Natura Viva—Centro Tutela Specie Minacciate. We thank Association Nationale pour la Gestion des Aires Protégées Madagascar, Association Mitsinjo, Dr Cesare Avesani Zavorra, Dr Caterina Spiezio, Fanomezantsoa Andrianirina, and Lanto Rakotoarisoa for their help and support.
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Sorrentino, V., Gamba, M., Giacoma, C. (2012). A Quantitative Description of the Vocal Types Emitted in the Indri’s Song. 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_35
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4511-1_35
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