IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0177411.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sexual dimorphism in African elephant social rumbles

Author

Listed:
  • Anton Baotic
  • Angela S Stoeger

Abstract

This study used the source and filter theory approach to analyse sex differences in the acoustic features of African elephant (Loxodonta africana) low-frequency rumbles produced in social contexts (‘social rumbles’). Permuted discriminant function analysis revealed that rumbles contain sufficient acoustic information to predict the sex of a vocalizing individual. Features primarily related to the vocalizer’s size, i.e. fundamental frequency variables and vocal tract resonant frequencies, differed significantly between the sexes. Yet, controlling for age and size effects, our results indicate that the pronounced sexual size dimorphism in African elephants is partly, but not exclusively, responsible for sexual differences in social rumbles. This provides a scientific foundation for future work investigating the perceptual and functional relevance of specific acoustic characteristics in African elephant vocal sexual communication.

Suggested Citation

  • Anton Baotic & Angela S Stoeger, 2017. "Sexual dimorphism in African elephant social rumbles," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(5), pages 1-14, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0177411
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0177411
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0177411
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0177411&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0177411?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Benjamin D. Charlton & David Reby, 2016. "The evolution of acoustic size exaggeration in terrestrial mammals," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 7(1), pages 1-8, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Evelyn Fuchs & Veronika C Beeck & Anton Baotic & Angela S Stoeger, 2021. "Acoustic structure and information content of trumpets in female Asian elephants (Elephas maximus)," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(11), pages 1-19, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Toe Aung & Alexander K. Hill & Dana Pfefferle & Edward McLester & James Fuller & Jenna M. Lawrence & Ivan Garcia-Nisa & Rachel L. Kendal & Megan Petersdorf & James P. Higham & Gérard Galat & Adriano R, 2023. "Group size and mating system predict sex differences in vocal fundamental frequency in anthropoid primates," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-8, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0177411. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.