ArticleScientific reports2015
Vocal individuality cues in the African penguin (Spheniscus demersus): a source-filter theory approach.
Article in Scientific reports, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 29 papers.
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29 citing papers in PubMed, 79 citations in OpenAlex.
- Social engagement modulates wild monkeys' vocal expressions and the behavioral response to that of others.iScience · 2026Article
- Social environment affects vocal individuality in a non-learning species.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Female song elicits increased vocal display effort in both sexes of Alston's singing mouse.Animal behaviour · 2025Article
- Formant analysis of vertebrate vocalizations: achievements, pitfalls, and promises.BMC biology · 2025Review
- Nonlinear vocal phenomena in African penguin begging calls: occurrence, significance and potential applications.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Long distance calls: Negligible information loss of little auk social vocalisations due to high frequency propagation losses.PLoS computational biology · 2024Article
- Vocal tract shape variation contributes to individual vocal identity in African penguins.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Penguins perceive variations of source- and filter-related vocal parameters of species-specific vocalisations.Animal cognition · 2023Article
- Effect of Environmental Variables on African Penguin Vocal Activity: Implications for Acoustic Censusing.Biology · 2023Article
- Seabird's cry: repertoire and vocal expression of contextual valence in the little auk (Alle alle).Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Improving the workflow to crack Small, Unbalanced, Noisy, but Genuine (SUNG) datasets in bioacoustics: The case of bonobo calls.PLoS computational biology · 2023Article
- Vocal accommodation in penguins (Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Long-term stability of vocal individuality cues in a territorial and monogamous seabird.Animal cognition · 2021Article
- Cross-modal individual recognition in the African penguin and the effect of partnership.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
- A small vocal repertoire during the breeding season expresses complex behavioral motivations and individual signature in the common coot.BMC zoology · 2021Article
- Behavioural response to songs between genetically diverged allopatric populations of Darwin's small tree finch in the Galápagos.Journal of evolutionary biology · 2021Article
- Do penguins' vocal sequences conform to linguistic laws?Biology letters · 2020Article
- Assessment of Laying Hens' Thermal Comfort Using Sound Technology.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Article
- Article
- Vocal tract anatomy of king penguins: morphological traits of two-voiced sound production.Frontiers in zoology · 2020Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The African penguin is a nesting seabird endemic to southern Africa. In penguins of the genus Spheniscus vocalisations are important for social recognition. However, it is not clear which acoustic features of calls can encode individual identity information. We recorded contact calls and ecstatic display songs of 12 adult birds from a captive colony. For each vocalisation, we measured 31 spectral and temporal acoustic parameters related to both source and filter components of calls. For each parameter, we calculated the Potential of Individual Coding (PIC). The acoustic parameters showing PIC ≥ 1.1 were used to perform a stepwise cross-validated discriminant function analysis (DFA). The DFA correctly classified 66.1% of the contact calls and 62.5% of display songs to the correct individual. The DFA also resulted in the further selection of 10 acoustic features for contact calls and 9 for display songs that were important for vocal individuality. Our results suggest that studying the anatomical constraints that influence nesting penguin vocalisations from a source-filter perspective, can lead to a much better understanding of the acoustic cues of individuality contained in their calls. This approach could be further extended to study and understand vocal communication in other bird species.
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