Multimodal communication of adult, subadult, and infant plains zebras (Equus quagga)
Data files
Sep 19, 2024 version files 954.39 KB
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Adult_Juvenile20212022.xlsx
952.11 KB
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README.md
2.28 KB
Abstract
Juveniles occupy a different social niche than adults, engaging in a smaller diversity of social contexts and perceiving greater social risks. Either or both of these factors may influence the form communication takes in immaturity and its developmental trajectory. We investigated the relative influence of these social forces on the development of multimodal communication in plains zebras (Equus quagga). Juveniles possessed smaller repertoires than adults, with lower combinatorial flexibility and greater stereotypy, particularly for signals used in submission. When interacting with adults, juveniles used a larger fraction of their repertoire, but with reduced combinatorial flexibility. The usage of a contextually flexible signal, “snapping”, also shifted across development, beginning as a stereotyped, submissive signal before diversifying into the full range of adult usage.
README: Multimodal communication of adult, subadult, and infant plains zebras (Equus quagga)
https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.c866t1ggk
Description of the data and file structure
Multimodal communication of adult, subadult, and infant plains zebras (Equus quagga)
This dataset comprises social interactions engaged in by adult, sub adult (>2 years old, pre-dispersal), and foal (<2 years old) wild plains zebras (Equus quagga). Data were extracted from videos collected during focal follows of 22 known focal harems between 2021 and 2022, and data collected ad libitum from a subset of 5 of the 22 followed harems followed between July 9th and August 9th, 2019. Behaviors were coded to define the full suite of visual, acoustic, tactile, and chemical signals that were produced. Data were used to construct co-occurrence networks of multimodal communication.
Files and variables
File: Adult_Juvenile20212022.xlsx
Description of data and file structure
Adult_juvenile_20212022. Each row represents an observed configuration of visual, tactile, acoustic, and/or chemical signals seen in a given moment in time. “Begin_Time” and “End_Time designate the time in the video that the given configuration was observed, while”Duration” designates how long the given posture was observed. All three are in “hh:mm:ss” format.
The entire body, “Ears”, “Eyes”, “Upper_Lip”, “Corner_of_Lip”, “Jaw”, “Head_Neck_Position”, and “Tail” are represented for each posture except for instances where there were mutually exclusive or redundant states (e.g. “jaw open” and “bite”). All other potential components were coded only as observed, and therefore may not be present in every observation. Empty cells reflect that there was no behavior observed in that component (e.g. no tactile behavior).
Within the excel file, a separate tab designates “All” (the entire dataset), “Juveniles” (all non-adults), “Adults Only”, “TwoandOlder”, “FoalsYearlings”. In addition, there are two tabs for interactions between “Juvenile-Juvenile”, and “Juvenile-Adult”.
Code/software
OntogenyRCode. R code used to conduct all analyses and construct all visualizations.