Academic Journal

Vocal complexity in the long calls of Bornean orangutans

التفاصيل البيبلوغرافية
العنوان: Vocal complexity in the long calls of Bornean orangutans
المؤلفون: Wendy M. Erb, Whitney Ross, Haley Kazanecki, Tatang Mitra Setia, Shyam Madhusudhana, Dena J. Clink
المصدر: PeerJ, Vol 12, p e17320 (2024)
بيانات النشر: PeerJ Inc., 2024.
سنة النشر: 2024
المجموعة: LCC:Medicine
LCC:Biology (General)
مصطلحات موضوعية: Acoustic communication, Affinity propagation, Fuzzy clustering, Graded signals, Machine learning, Supervised classification, Medicine, Biology (General), QH301-705.5
الوصف: Vocal complexity is central to many evolutionary hypotheses about animal communication. Yet, quantifying and comparing complexity remains a challenge, particularly when vocal types are highly graded. Male Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii) produce complex and variable “long call” vocalizations comprising multiple sound types that vary within and among individuals. Previous studies described six distinct call (or pulse) types within these complex vocalizations, but none quantified their discreteness or the ability of human observers to reliably classify them. We studied the long calls of 13 individuals to: (1) evaluate and quantify the reliability of audio-visual classification by three well-trained observers, (2) distinguish among call types using supervised classification and unsupervised clustering, and (3) compare the performance of different feature sets. Using 46 acoustic features, we used machine learning (i.e., support vector machines, affinity propagation, and fuzzy c-means) to identify call types and assess their discreteness. We additionally used Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection (UMAP) to visualize the separation of pulses using both extracted features and spectrogram representations. Supervised approaches showed low inter-observer reliability and poor classification accuracy, indicating that pulse types were not discrete. We propose an updated pulse classification approach that is highly reproducible across observers and exhibits strong classification accuracy using support vector machines. Although the low number of call types suggests long calls are fairly simple, the continuous gradation of sounds seems to greatly boost the complexity of this system. This work responds to calls for more quantitative research to define call types and quantify gradedness in animal vocal systems and highlights the need for a more comprehensive framework for studying vocal complexity vis-à-vis graded repertoires.
نوع الوثيقة: article
وصف الملف: electronic resource
اللغة: English
تدمد: 2167-8359
Relation: https://peerj.com/articles/17320.pdf; https://peerj.com/articles/17320/; https://doaj.org/toc/2167-8359
DOI: 10.7717/peerj.17320
URL الوصول: https://doaj.org/article/acde1b4e0307456c8a603e7e86e31eb9
رقم الانضمام: edsdoj.1b4e0307456c8a603e7e86e31eb9
قاعدة البيانات: Directory of Open Access Journals
الوصف
تدمد:21678359
DOI:10.7717/peerj.17320