Learning to speak elephant: Choruses of rumbles help groups coordinate
Choruses of African elephant rumbles appear to become more similar in certain situations, including reuniting or coordinating what to do next. Now, new research published in Scientific Reports provides evidence that elephant rumble choruses function as group signals.
African elephants communicate using low-frequency rumbles, with around 60% of these vocalizations occurring in choruses involving multiple elephants. Researchers from Phys.org have found that these elephant rumble choruses can become more similar in certain social contexts, potentially serving as a group coordination signal. By analyzing 902 recordings of single and chorused rumbles from 84 wild elephants in Amboseli National Park, Kenya, over several decades, the team discovered that acoustic characteristics of both single and chorused rumbles could predict the context of the vocalization.
Models trained with single rumbles were also able to predict the context of chorused rumbles, revealing common acoustic features that carry specific meanings. Furthermore, the researchers observed that rumbles became more acoustically similar during contact, greeting, and cadenced exchanges, which often involve multiple elephants coordinating a shared plan of action.
This vocal convergence may help the group decide what to do next, although the study did not include playback experiments to test how elephants respond to converging calls.
Brief written by urgent.news from Phys.org's own syndicated text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
