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View article: Ontogeny of Diet and Behavior of a Wild, Critically Endangered Lemur ( <i>Indri indri</i> )
Ontogeny of Diet and Behavior of a Wild, Critically Endangered Lemur ( <i>Indri indri</i> ) Open
The early developmental period plays a key role in primate behavioral outcomes. Understanding the behavioral ecology of infant indris ( Indri indri ) helps to identify resources needed during early developmental stages, the weaning process…
View article: Bayesian inference for latent spectral shapes
Bayesian inference for latent spectral shapes Open
This paper proposes a hierarchical model for the analysis of spectrograms of animal calls. The motivation stems from analysing recordings of the so-called grunt calls emitted by various lemur species. Our goal is to identify a latent spect…
View article: Hidden assumptions of integer ratio analyses in bioacoustics and music
Hidden assumptions of integer ratio analyses in bioacoustics and music Open
Rhythm is ubiquitous in human culture and in nature, but hard to capture in all its complexity. A key dimension of rhythm, integer ratio categories occur when the relationship between temporal intervals can be expressed as small‐integer ra…
View article: Accelerando and crescendo in African penguin ecstatic display songs
Accelerando and crescendo in African penguin ecstatic display songs Open
Many species produce rhythmic sound sequences. Some purportedly speed up their vocalizations throughout a display, reminiscent of—but not necessarily equivalent to— accelerando in human music. This phenomenon has been frequently reported b…
View article: Third‐order self‐embedded vocal motifs in wild orangutans, and the selective evolution of recursion
Third‐order self‐embedded vocal motifs in wild orangutans, and the selective evolution of recursion Open
Recursion, the neuro‐computational operation of nesting a signal or pattern within itself, lies at the structural basis of language. Classically considered absent in the vocal repertoires of nonhuman animals, whether recursion evolved step…
View article: An evolutionary model of rhythmic accelerando in animal vocal signalling
An evolutionary model of rhythmic accelerando in animal vocal signalling Open
Animal acoustic communication contains many structural features. Among these, temporal structure, or rhythmicity, is increasingly tested empirically and modelled quantitatively. Accelerando is a rhythmic structure which consists of tempora…
View article: Accelerando and crescendo in African penguin display songs
Accelerando and crescendo in African penguin display songs Open
Many species produce rhythmic sound sequences. Some purportedly speed up their vocalizations throughout a display, reminiscent of—but not necessarily equivalent to— “accelerando” in human music. This phenomenon has been frequently reported…
View article: Singing out of tune: sexual and developmental differences in the occurrence of nonlinear phenomena in primate songs
Singing out of tune: sexual and developmental differences in the occurrence of nonlinear phenomena in primate songs Open
Animal vocalizations contain a varying degree of nonlinear phenomena (NLP) caused by irregular or chaotic vocal organ dynamics. Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain NLP presence, from unintentional by-products of poor vocal tec…
View article: Rhythmic Analysis in Animal Communication, Speech, and Music: The Normalized Pairwise Variability Index Is a Summary Statistic of Rhythm Ratios
Rhythmic Analysis in Animal Communication, Speech, and Music: The Normalized Pairwise Variability Index Is a Summary Statistic of Rhythm Ratios Open
Rhythm is fundamental in many physical and biological systems. Rhythm is relevant to a broad range of phenomena across different fields, including animal bioacoustics, speech sciences, and music cognition. As a result, the interest in deve…
View article: Quantifying Facial Gestures Using Deep Learning in a New World Monkey
Quantifying Facial Gestures Using Deep Learning in a New World Monkey Open
Facial gestures are a crucial component of primate multimodal communication. However, current methodologies for extracting facial data from video recordings are labor‐intensive and prone to human subjectivity. Although automatic tools for …
View article: Hidden assumptions of integer ratio analyses in bioacoustics and music
Hidden assumptions of integer ratio analyses in bioacoustics and music Open
Rhythm is ubiquitous in human culture and in nature, but hard to capture in all its complexity. A key dimension of rhythm, integer ratio categories occur when the relationship between temporal intervals can be expressed as small-integer ra…
View article: Isochrony in titi monkeys duets: social context as a proximate cause of duets’ rhythm and regularity
Isochrony in titi monkeys duets: social context as a proximate cause of duets’ rhythm and regularity Open
Music and rhythm are typical features of all human cultures, but their biological origins remain unclear. Recent investigations suggest that rhythmic features of human music are shared with animal vocalizations. Moreover, arousal is known …
View article: A forest path towards an education for global citizenship
A forest path towards an education for global citizenship Open
Long-term zoological and ethological field research plays a substantial role in developing effective biodiversity conservation actions. At the same time, stable research facilities in areas where subsistence economies prevail foster the de…
View article: Rhythmic categories in horse gait kinematics
Rhythmic categories in horse gait kinematics Open
Anecdotally, horses' gaits sound rhythmic. Are they really? In this study, we quantified the motor rhythmicity of horses across three different gaits (walk, trot, and canter). For the first time, we adopted quantitative tools from bioacous…
View article: The rhythm of horse gaits
The rhythm of horse gaits Open
What makes animal gaits so audibly rhythmic? To answer this question, we recorded the footfall sound of 19 horses and quantified the rhythmic differences in the temporal structure of three natural gaits: walk, trot, and canter. Our analyse…
View article: Discrimination between the facial gestures of vocalising and non-vocalising lemurs and small apes using deep learning
Discrimination between the facial gestures of vocalising and non-vocalising lemurs and small apes using deep learning Open
Facial expression studies in animal communication are essential. However, manual inspection methods are only practical for small datasets. Deep learning techniques can help discriminate facial configurations associated with vocalisations o…
View article: &quot;Get on board with researchers&quot;: Life Conceptu Maris marine citizen science campaign
"Get on board with researchers": Life Conceptu Maris marine citizen science campaign Open
The manuscript provides an overview of the mid-term results of the citizen science campaign activities conducted within the Life CONCEPTU MARIS project (LIFE20 NAT/IT/001371) whose aim is to improve the conservation status of cetaceans and…
View article: What do rattle quills tell? A morphological analysis of the rattling in the African crested porcupine
What do rattle quills tell? A morphological analysis of the rattling in the African crested porcupine Open
Sonations are non-vocal acoustic signals whose production mechanisms have been rarely investigated in mammals. Since sonations are directly tied to specific anatomical characteristics, one issue in acoustic communication studies is estimat…
View article: Singing in the rain! Climate constraints on the occurrence of indri's song
Singing in the rain! Climate constraints on the occurrence of indri's song Open
The study of how animals adapt their behaviors depending on weather variables has gained particular significance in the context of climate change. This exploration offers insights into endangered species' potential threats and provides inf…
View article: Isochrony as ancestral condition to call and song in a primate
Isochrony as ancestral condition to call and song in a primate Open
Animal songs differ from calls in function and structure, and have comparative and translational value, showing similarities to human music. Rhythm in music is often distributed in quantized classes of intervals known as rhythmic categorie…
View article: A toolkit for the dynamic study of air sacs in siamang and other elastic circular structures
A toolkit for the dynamic study of air sacs in siamang and other elastic circular structures Open
Biological structures are defined by rigid elements, such as bones, and elastic elements, like muscles and membranes. Computer vision advances have enabled automatic tracking of moving animal skeletal poses. Such developments provide insig…
View article: Bayesian inference of Latent Spectral Shapes
Bayesian inference of Latent Spectral Shapes Open
This paper proposes a hierarchical spatial-temporal model for modelling the spectrograms of animal calls. The motivation stems from analyzing recordings of the so-called grunt calls emitted by various lemur species. Our goal is to identify…
View article: Manual preference, performance, and dexterity for bimanual grass‐feeding behavior in wild geladas (<i>Theropithecus gelada</i>)
Manual preference, performance, and dexterity for bimanual grass‐feeding behavior in wild geladas (<i>Theropithecus gelada</i>) Open
We assessed whether wild geladas, highly specialized terrestrial grass eaters, are lateralized for bimanual grass‐plucking behavior. According to the literature, we expected that complex motor movements in grass feeding would favor the eme…
View article: Who you live with and what you duet for: a review of the function of primate duets in relation to their social organization
Who you live with and what you duet for: a review of the function of primate duets in relation to their social organization Open
Duets are one of the most fascinating displays in animal vocal communication, where two animals fine-tune the timing of their emissions to create a coordinated signal. Duetting behavior is widespread in the animal kingdom and is present in…
View article: Recursive self-embedded vocal motifs in wild orangutans
Recursive self-embedded vocal motifs in wild orangutans Open
Recursive procedures that allow placing a vocal signal inside another of a similar kind provide a neuro-computational blueprint for syntax and phonology in spoken language and human song. There are, however, no known vocal sequences among …
View article: Author Response: Recursive self-embedded vocal motifs in wild orangutans
Author Response: Recursive self-embedded vocal motifs in wild orangutans Open
Full text Figures and data Side by side Abstract eLife assessment eLife digest Introduction Results Discussion Materials and methods Data availability References Peer review Author response Article and author information Metrics Abstract R…
View article: Automatic detection of indris songs using convolutional neural networks
Automatic detection of indris songs using convolutional neural networks Open
The combination of bioacoustic monitoring with machine learning algorithms is increasingly used to gain information on species distribution or activity.Among these methods, convolutional neural networks (CNN) for the automatic classificati…
View article: Bridging the gap between non-vocal behavioural studies and bioacoustics using BORIS
Bridging the gap between non-vocal behavioural studies and bioacoustics using BORIS Open
Information technology's role in studying animal behavior is becoming increasingly important.Thanks to the high quality of portable instruments such as video cameras and recorders and the associated microphone equipment, studies of nonvoca…