Cao Vit Gibbons ( Nomascus nasutus ) Sing at Higher Elevation but Not in Peripheral Areas of Their Home Range in a Karst
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Cao Vit Gibbons (Nomascus nasutus) Sing at Higher Elevation but Not in Peripheral Areas of Their Home Range in a Karst Forest Haigang Ma 1 & Changyong Ma 1 & Hanlan Fei 1 & Li Yang 1 & Pengfei Fan 1 Received: 13 September 2019 / Accepted: 24 August 2020/ # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Gibbons’ loud morning songs are hypothesized to function in territorial defense. To efficiently defend their territory, gibbons could sing more frequently along the territory boundary. Alternatively, singing may advertise occupancy of a territory, regardless of the singer’s location. Further, gibbons should choose singing sites that facilitate sound transmission. We investigated singing site choice of two groups of cao vit gibbon (Nomascus nasutus) from 2008-2009 and 2012-2013, in Bangliang Gibbon Nature Reserve, Guangxi, China. We did not find that groups sang more frequently than expected at the periphery of their home ranges, which does not support the boundary defense hypothesis. Instead, groups sang from the core area or irrespective of locations within an established territory, supporting the hypothesis that they advertise continuous occupancy of territories through regular singing. Singing locations were at significantly higher elevation than non-singing locations for both groups in the two study periods, supporting the hypothesis that cao vit gibbons choose singing locations to maximize sound transmission and minimize signal attenuation in karst forest. Thus, although the sample size is small, our study suggests that gibbons display flexibility in their choice of singing sites in different environments to ensure they can defend their territory. Keywords Territoriality . Sound transmission . Singing site choice . Boundary defense
hypothesis . Territory occupancy hypothesis . Gibbons
Haigang Ma and Changyong Ma contributed equally to this work. Handling Editor: Joanna M. Setchell.
* Pengfei Fan [email protected]
1
School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, People’s Republic of China
H. Ma et al.
Introduction Many animal species produce loud and long-distance advertising calls or songs that play crucial roles in intragroup and intergroup communication (Chivers 1969, 1976; Mitani 1985a; Ryan and Kime 2003). These calls or songs are hypothesized to be used to defend territories from a distance in many animal species, including birds and primates (Caselli et al. 2014; Collins 2004). Calls can be used to advertise either the territory boundary or territory occupancy (Bradbury and Vehrencamp 1998; Maher and Lott 1995). The boundary defense hypothesis argues that it is necessary to sing from along the territory boundary to prevent incursion by neighbors (Eason et al. 1999). For example, some birds commonly use singing to create territorial boundaries and sing more frequently on the periphery of their territory (Hinde 1956; Sprau et al. 2010; Vehrencamp et al. 2014), and titi monkeys (Callicebus moloch) also call more frequently near the boundary th
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