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Calves spend
most of their time within a body's
length of family members.
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Through opportunities to observe
forest elephants, our research program also examines aggression
and dominance behaviors in relation to vocal behavior of forest
elephants. At Dzanga bai, competition for mineral pits was examined
to 1) determine if access to mineral pits is regulated by a dominance
hierarchy which can be measured in terms of sex/age class, 2) examine
aggressive interactions in relation to elephant density, and 3)
examine the incidence, structure, and context of vocalizations associated
with aggressive interactions. Preliminary results suggest that only
10% of aggressive interactions result in vocalizations and only
10% of those vocalizations are low frequency calls (Payne
et al. in prep). Thus, high frequency calls are more commonly associated
with aggressive interactions.
References
Payne, K., A. Turkalo, M. Groo, and M. Thompson. In prep. Dominance
relationships in African forest elephants.
Next>> |
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| Learn more about the
social lives of forest elephants:
View video from the Central African rainforest. (Courtesy
of the New York Times)
Video>>
Learn more about the greeting ceremonies of elephants:
More>>
Listen to a forest clearing at night, full of forest
elephants
Audio>>
(Click on Listen to sounds of the bai. courtesy of Radio Expeditions) |
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