Manser
Fakultäten » Mathematisch-naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät » Evolutionsbiologie und Umweltwissenschaften, Institut für » Animal Behaviour » Prof. Dr. Marta Manser » Manser
Completed research project
| Title / Titel | Cognition and communication in mammals | ||||||
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| Abstract (PDF, 14 KB) | |||||||
| Summary / Zusammenfassung | An important aspect in sociobiology is to understand what information animals perceive, process and transfer from their environment and how they coordinate their behaviour with other group members. Research in primates has shown that social complexity is of major importance in the evolution of cognitive abilities. One would expect to find evolutionary convergence for specific skills and in non-primate species with complex social systems. We aim to compare the cognitive abilities of social carnivores with varying degree of social complexity: the meerkat (Suricata suricatta), banded mongoose (Mungos mungo), and the yellow mongoose (Cynictis penicillata). These species live under similar ecological conditions, but show marked differences in their social organisation and in the expression of a dominance hierarchy. We investigate the social skills and environmental knowledge in wild populations of these species, and also attempt to evaluate the mechanisms behind specific behaviour, in particularly in comparison to what is known for primates. Within field studies we investigate the behaviour of the animals in their natural habitat on habituated populations that are individually recognisable and allow us to follow them within a meter all day. This allows detailed documentation of their behaviour and audio and video recordings, and also to conduct manipulation experiments, including playback experiments. Therefore hypotheses based on observations of their natural behaviour are tested with specific designed experiments. |
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| Publications / Publikationen | Manser MB (1999) ‘Response of foraging group members to sentinel calls in suricates, Suricata suricatta’. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 266, 1013-1019Clutton-Brock TH, O’Riain MJ, Brotherton PNM, Gaynor D, Kansky R, Griffin AS & Manser M (1999) ‘Selfish Sentinels in Cooperative Mammals’. Science 284, 5420, 1577-1724.Manser, M.B. (2001): ‘The acoustic structure of suricate alarm calls varies with predator type and the level of urgency’. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 268, 2315-2324.Manser MB, Bell MB & Fletcher LB (2001): ‘The information that receivers extract from alarm calls in suricates’. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 268, 2485-2491Manser MB, Seyfarth RM & Cheney DL (2002) ‘Suricate alarm calls signal predator class and urgency’. Trends of Cognitive Science 6, 55-57Manser, M.B., Bell, M.B. (2004) 'Spatial representation of shelter locations in meerkats (Suricata suricatta)'. Animal Behaviour, 68: 151-157.Manser, M.B., Fletcher L.B. (2004) 'Vocalize to localize - A test on functionally referential alarm calls'. Interaction Studies 5, 327-344.Carlson, A.A., Manser, M.B., Young, A.J., Russell, A.F., Jordan, N.R., McNeilly, A.S., Clutton-Brock, T.H. (2006) 'Cortisol levels are positively correlated with pup-feeding rates in male meerkats'. Proceedings of the Royal Society, London B 273, 571-577.Hollén L & Manser MB (2006) ‘The ontogeny of alarm call responses in meerkat pups: the role of age, sex and nearby conspecifics’, Animal Behaviour, 72, 1345-1353Clutton-Brock TH, Hodge S, Spong G, Russell AF, Jordan NR, Bennett NC & Manser MB (2006) ‘Intrasexual competiton in cooperative mammals’, Nature, 444: 1065-1068Muller C, & Manser MB (2007) ‘Nasty neighbours, rather then ‘dear enemies’ in a social carnivore’, Proceedings of the Royal Society, London, B 274, 959-965. | ||||||
| Keywords / Suchbegriffe | animal behaviour, comparative psychology, animal societies, cooperation, cognition, signaling, animal communication, vocal behaviour, olfactory communication, anti-predator strategies, decision-making, coordination, social carnivores, mongooses, field studies | ||||||
| Project leadership and contacts / Projektleitung und Kontakte |
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| Funding source(s) / Unterstützt durch |
SNF (Personen- und Projektförderung), Others |
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| Duration of Project / Projektdauer | Jun 2002 to May 2007 |