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Trade-offs in the production of animal vocal sequences: insights from the structure of wild chimpanzee pant hoots

Overview of attention for article published in Frontiers in Zoology, November 2017
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  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (92nd percentile)
  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (78th percentile)

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2 news outlets
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16 X users
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2 Facebook pages
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3 Wikipedia pages

Citations

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34 Dimensions

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56 Mendeley
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Title
Trade-offs in the production of animal vocal sequences: insights from the structure of wild chimpanzee pant hoots
Published in
Frontiers in Zoology, November 2017
DOI 10.1186/s12983-017-0235-8
Pubmed ID
Authors

Pawel Fedurek, Klaus Zuberbühler, Stuart Semple

Abstract

Vocal sequences - utterances consisting of calls produced in close succession - are common phenomena in animal communication. While many studies have explored the adaptive benefits of producing such sequences, very little is known about how the costs and constraints involved in their production affect their form. Here, we investigated this issue in the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) pant hoot, a long and structurally complex vocal sequence comprising four acoustically distinct phases - introduction, build-up, climax and let-down. We found that in each of these phases, and for the sequence as a whole, there was a negative relationship between the number of calls produced and their average duration. There was also a negative relationship between the total duration of some adjacent phases. Significant relationships between the fundamental frequency of calls and their number or duration were found for some phases of the sequence, but the direction of these relationships differed between particular phases. These results indicate that there are trade-offs in terms of signal duration at two levels in pant-hoot production: between call number and duration, and between the relative durations of successive phases. These trade-offs are likely to reflect biomechanical constraints on vocal sequence production. Phase-specific trade-offs also appear to occur between fundamental frequency and call number or duration, potentially reflecting that different phases of the sequence are associated with distinct types of information, linked in different ways to call pitch. Overall, this study highlights the important role of costs and constraints in shaping the temporal and acoustic structure of animal vocal sequences.

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 56 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 56 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 13 23%
Student > Master 11 20%
Researcher 7 13%
Student > Bachelor 5 9%
Student > Doctoral Student 4 7%
Other 6 11%
Unknown 10 18%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 19 34%
Psychology 9 16%
Environmental Science 5 9%
Linguistics 4 7%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 1 2%
Other 4 7%
Unknown 14 25%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 31. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 03 October 2021.
All research outputs
#1,225,807
of 24,594,795 outputs
Outputs from Frontiers in Zoology
#69
of 684 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#25,689
of 336,489 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Frontiers in Zoology
#4
of 14 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 24,594,795 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 95th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 684 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 20.9. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 90% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 336,489 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 92% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 14 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 78% of its contemporaries.