Maternal effects on the development of vocal communication in wild chimpanzees

Aisha C Bründl; Cédric Girard-Buttoz; Tatiana Bortolato; Liran Samuni; Mathilde Grampp; Therese Löhrich; Patrick Tkaczynski; Roman M Wittig; Catherine Crockford

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2022.105152

Maternal effects on the development of vocal communication in wild chimpanzees

iScience. 2022 Sep 19;25(10):105152. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.105152. eCollection 2022 Oct 21.

Authors

Aisha C Bründl^{1

2

3}, Cédric Girard-Buttoz^{1

3

4}, Tatiana Bortolato^{1

3

4}, Liran Samuni^{3

5}, Mathilde Grampp^{1

3

4}, Therese Löhrich^{3

6

7

8}, Patrick Tkaczynski^{1

3

9}, Roman M Wittig^{1

3}, Catherine Crockford^{1

3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig 04103, Germany.
² Department of Neuropsychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig 04103, Germany.
³ Taï Chimpanzee Project, Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques, 01 BP 1303, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.
⁴ The Great Ape Social Mind Lab, Institut des Sciences Cognitives, CNRS, 67 Boulevard Pinel, Bron, 69675 Lyon, France.
⁵ Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
⁶ Epidemiology of Highly Pathogenic Microorganisms, Robert Koch Institute, Seestraße 10, Berlin 13353, Germany.
⁷ World Wide Fund for Nature, Dzanga Sangha Protected Areas, Bangui BP 1053, Central African Republic.
⁸ Veterinary Group Practice Heeslingen, Stader Straße 5, 27404 Heeslingen, Germany.
⁹ School of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool L33AF, UK.

Abstract

Early-life experiences, such as maternal care received, influence adult social integration and survival. We examine what changes to social behavior through ontogeny lead to these lifelong effects, particularly whether early-life maternal environment impacts the development of social communication. Chimpanzees experience prolonged social communication development. Focusing on a central communicative trait, the "pant-hoot" contact call used to solicit social engagement, we collected cross-sectional data on wild chimpanzees (52 immatures and 36 mothers). We assessed early-life socioecological impacts on pant-hoot rates across development, specifically: mothers' gregariousness, age, pant-hoot rates and dominance rank, maternal loss, and food availability, controlling for current maternal effects. We found that early-life maternal gregariousness correlated positively with offspring pant-hoot rates, while maternal loss led to reduced pant-hoot rates across development. Males had steeper developmental trajectories in pant-hoot rates than females. We demonstrate the impact of maternal effects on developmental trajectories of a rarely investigated social trait, vocal production.

Keywords: Biological sciences; Ethology; Zoology.

Associated data

figshare/10.6084/m9.figshare.20481303.v1