Does sociality drive the evolution of communicative complexity? A comparative test with ground-dwelling sciurid alarm calls
Abstract
While sociality has been hypothesized to drive the evolution of communicative complexity, the relationship remains to be formally tested. We derive a continuous measure of social complexity from demographic data and use this variable to explain variation in alarm repertoire size in ground-dwelling sciurid rodents (marmots, Marmota spp.; prairie dogs, Cynomys spp.; and ground squirrels, Spermophilus spp.). About 40% of the variation in alarm call repertoire size was explained by social complexity in the raw data set. To determine the degree to which this relationship may have been influenced by historical relationships between species, we used five different phylogenetic hypotheses to calculate phylogenetically independent contrasts. Less variation was significantly explained in contrast-based analyses, but a general positive relationship remained. Social complexity explained more variation in alarm call repertoire size in marmots, while sociality explained no variation in repertoire size in prairie dogs and no variation in phylogenetically based analyses of squirrels. In most cases, substantial variation remained unexplained by social complexity. We acknowledge that factors other than social complexity, per se, may contribute to the evolution of alarm call repertoire size in sciurid rodents, and we discuss alternative hypotheses. Our measure of social complexity could be used by other researchers to test explicit evolutionary hypotheses that involve social complexity.
Local Knowledge Graph (20 entities)
Related Works
Items connected by shared entities, co-authorship, citations, or semantic similarity.
Holarctic marmots as a factor of biodiversity
Evolving communicative complexity: insights from rodents and beyond
Alarm calling in yellow-bellied marmots: I. The meaning of situationally variable alarm calls
Data from: A cost of being amicable in a hibernating marmot
Marmot mass gain rates relate to their group’s social structure
Data from: Strong social relationships are associated with decreased longevity in a facultatively social mammal
Small Mammals: A Beaver Pond Ecosystem and Adjacent Riparian Habitat in Idaho
Shrubland Ecosystem Genetics And Biodiversity: Proceedings
A New Hydrologic Perspective of How Beaver Ponds Function
Cited By (246 times, 18 in Knowledge Hub)
Social Security: Do Individuals in Tight-Knit Social Groups Perceive Greater Security?
Social security: are socially connected individuals less vigilant?
Social security: Are socially connected individuals less vigilant?
How does relative refuge angle influence escape behavior: an empirical test with yellow-bellied marmot.
Yellow-bellied marmots: insights from an emergent view of sociality.
Evolving communicative complexity: insights from rodents and beyond
The potential to encode sex, age, and individual identity in the alarm calls of three species of Marmotinae
Social group size predicts the evolution of individuality
Mule deer (<i>Odocoileus hemionus</i>) respond to yellow-bellied marmot (<i>Marmota flaviventris</i>) alarm calls
The evolution, function, and meaning of marmot alarm communication
Rodent societies
Intraspecific variation in marmots
Yellow-bellied marmots discriminate between the alarm calls of individuals and are more responsive to calls from juveniles
Social complexity but not the acoustic environment is responsible for the evolution of complex alarm communication
The evolution of functionally referential alarm communication: multiple adaptations; multiple constraints
Why do yellow-bellied marmots call?
A test of the acoustic adaptation hypothesis in four species of marmots
A 32-year demography of yellow-bellied marmots (<i>Marmota flaviventris</i>)
References (219)
5 in Knowledge Hub, 214 external