Behaviour 143, No 8 (August 2006)
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/brill/beh/2006/00000143/00000008
Sugiura, H, T Tanaka, & N Masataka (2006) Sound transmission in the habitats
of Japanese macaques and its possible effect on population differences in
coo calls. Behaviour 143: 993-1012.
Abstract
Recently, the acoustic features of coo calls were reported to differ between
two populations of Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata yakui), namely the
Ohirayama and Yakushima populations. We hypothesized that this difference
may arise through differences in the acoustic environments of the two
habitats, and measured the degrees of transmission of pure tones (250-8000
Hz) and the coo calls of the two populations in each habitat. In the
Ohirayama habitat, lower frequencies were transmitted more efficiently, and
the low-pitched coo calls of the Ohirayama population showed significantly
better transmission than the high-pitched calls of the Yakushima population.
In the Yakushima habitat, the degrees of transmission of the calls of the
two populations did not differ significantly. Therefore, the calls of the
Ohirayama population possess acoustic features that allow better
transmission in their own habitat, suggesting that the habitat acoustics may
be a factor contributing to the population difference between the calls.
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