DNA Research Report on Animal Communication

Tips for Animal Communication Science Fair Projects

When working on an animal communication science fair project you need to be careful not to read too much into your data. Keep in mind that when working with any living thing that your actions and presence can impact the behavior of that living creature. Also the way that you interpret sounds and body postures may bias your findings. Try to be completely objective when interpreting your communication data.

Basic Definition:

The study of animal communication is very complicated and involves many different studies put together to solve the everlasting riddle of animal communication. The need for some source of communication is great. The chain of life makes it so that every being or organism on this earth depends on another in some way. A source of communication makes it so an organism can depend on another like the chain of life demands.

A troop of monkeys for example are very social and are constantly on the lookout for danger, but what would they do if they could not tell the other members of the troop when some predator is spotted nearby? Communication is some sort of signal including; sound, color patterns, postures, certain movements or displays, electrical discharge, touch, an odor, or any combination. So a monkey who noticed danger would not be able to do anything except save himself if communicating was impossible. He could not make others notice this danger because to do that he has to do something that would count as communication to make his troop notice him. All he can do is dash up a tree to save himself and leave his troop to their fate.

Fairy tales and Myths

Humans have been fascinated with animal communication for a very long time. Since the beginning of time humans have made a strong "bond" with animals, eventually bringing them into domestication. This love toward animals makes young children in particular, eager to know what their animal is thinking or saying to them.

Fairy tales and myths also support this interest. In a lot of these stories animals seem to receive the capability to speak, and we humans would understand them. The authors or storytellers seem to assume that animals have meaning to what they do. In some stories humans receive the ability to speak to animals. When young children are told these stories, they then feel an eagerness to talk with the animals just like in the story. These tales also lead to dislikes and to suspicions. In “Little Red Riding Hood” the wolf is taken as a tricky and sly killer after eating Grandma. This story probably has something to do with the fear of wolves in the past and present. These stories influence the mind’s eagerness to communicate with animals.

Important People

Again since the beginning, many scientists have become discouraged trying to crack the animal code. Only ten years ago we found the technology to study animals’ communication. Some scientists from the past helped us get there.

Thomas Edison and many other scientists tried to create a machine that could reproduce sound. Though Edison failed at this a German immigrant was inspired to try for himself. This man Emile Berliner then created a gramophone disk that could reproduce sound.

R.L. Garner was one of the first to use a more modern study of animal communication. Garner used the gramophone disk to record monkeys in the National Zoological Park in Washington D.C.

Charles Darwin was one of the first scientists to study animal communication but became thoroughly discouraged.

Two centuries ago Gilbert White used a pitch pipe to see if owls hoot in the key of b flat. This however also was not successful.

In the mid 19th century Richard Burton, a fine linguist, listed 60 different chimpanzee calls. This was very important to the full study of animal communication.

Currently a scientist named Katherine B. Payne has been in full swing studying animals and the way they communicate. She has studied whale songs for ten years, and led scientists into believing that elephants use ultrasonic sound from an experiment she performed in the Portland Zoo.

Sound Itself

Sound is a type of energy that travels in a series of waves. Sound is emitted in vibrations then caught by the ear and decoded. The world may often seem silent and so might the oceans but they are very busy with all types of communication. Vocalization is one highly popular way to communicate. But humans can only hear part of the loud, crazy, mess of the world’s sounds. Sound falls into three categories: ultrasound, infrasound and what is audible to us.

Ultra and Infra

Sound is a type of energy that travels in the form of a wave. Ultrasonic sound waves (too high for the human ear) are short and fast but if were to bump into a tree they would bounce back in the form of an echo or would disappear. Infrasonic sound waves (too low for us to hear) are long and slow but if were to bump a tree the sound wave would be able to move around it or to veer the tree. Infrasound therefore would be more efficient in dense forests but ultrasound would go farther on the clear savannas of Africa and would quickly get attention. Ultrasound would then be more efficient overall. But you also have to look at the down side, high pitched sound may also get the attention of predators!

The Goal

Since animals come in all shapes and sizes so do their ways of communicating with each other. That means we also need to use many different methods of studying animal communication and use many different tools in each individual method. It is very difficult to study animal communication because you have to determine what communication is and is not, and after determining what it is you have to decide how to study each style of communication. This study has many different steps to each method and none of them are perfect. This makes it is a slow process. Wouldn't it be much easier if animals could just be able to communicate with us?

Tools Used

Currently most studies of animal communication are only involving sound or displays and gestures because olfactory senses aren't’t used as much as sound is, and humans aren’t exactly interested in communicating using smells from urine on trees. So most of the tools used in this area of study are microphones, tape recorders, speakers, video cameras and the human brain’s use of logic. There is one instrument of a higher level of technology called the sound spectrogram.

A sound spectrogram is a machine similar to those used to measure earthquakes. A stylus jiggles across a long strip of paper that measures cycles of sound per second, frequency and intensity. The stylus jiggles across the paper forming an advanced series of scribbles. The horizontal dimension shows the time the sound is heard from left to right using Hz and kHz. The vertical dimension shows the frequency or pitch of the recorded sound. When the “scribbles” the stylus makes are dark it means the sound is loud, when they are soft “scribbles” the sound is quieter. A sound spectrogram is the best quality you can find for measuring sound. It measures exactly what it hears exactly when it hears it.

Level of Study in Animal Communication

These are a series of steps students use to study animal communication so that they get a brief idea of what the signal might signify. This system does not make it so that we can communicate with animals but that we may get a brief idea of what they are saying.

Syntactic: Mainly used for sound, the first step used is to determine whether there is a meaning to the sound or whether it is a completely normal action. For example, when a lion roars is it because it is yawning, which is completely natural to come out in a sound, or is it saying, “I’m the boss.”

Semantic: Then the question is asked: what could his sound mean? Scientists break down the sound so that they can try to find out why that pitch was used and if it had anything to do with the signal sent. High-pitched notes travel fast and cut through the air with a loud snap and are mainly used for emergencies when danger is near and another organism’s attention needs to be caught quickly. Low-pitched notes are slower and don’t immediately catch the attention of another organism. Your schoolteacher for example, if the teacher had a lower voice your attention wouldn’t be caught as fast as a higher, sharper voice.

Pragmatic: The next step is to find the effect of the signal toward other animals’ behavior. Then they take all theses steps and put them together. If the sound is a way of communicating what could the signal mean? Does the signal’s meaning fit its effect?

The Solution: If a Howler monkey emitted a high-pitched sound would this be a habit that is made everyday for no reason or does it signify something? What does it signify? Does the signal alter the behavior of other organisms and would this action or change in behavior be because of what the signal signifies? So in the end theses steps give us this information: a howler monkey emits a high pitched howl, it is for a reason, this reason is because of a big cat lurking in the bushes, and the other monkeys flee because the signal warned them that the cat was there. Makes sense huh?

Audio Playback Experiment

This method of study is used for vocalized communications or for communication involving sounds. The first thing you do is record the sound you want to experiment with. Then, you play the sound over again and see if there is a response from the animals nearby. Next you mix up the recording on the computer and play it back. You look for another response and then have to think about it, why would there be a response and why not.

An example of this is a recording of certain songbirds. First you would record the songbird’s song, which is supposed to be a territorial song. You would then move to an area of unclaimed songbird territory where other songbirds are within earshot. Here you would play back the recording and look for a response. This experiment has been tried and the response is that the other songbirds stay away from this area. Most of the songbirds you hear are actually males warning other males to back off. So when an area is open it becomes a fight for who claims it first gets it. If you play the song in an open tree the other males won’t bother to try to trespass even if it is just a tape recorder!

Video Playback Experiment

This is exactly the same experiment as the audio playback experiment only it is using a video camera and made for courtship displays. First you tape it. Then you find a place to present the video to another animal of the same species of your taped animal. Then you play it for them. Look for a response of any kind. Then you mix up your taped display and look for a response. Logic is then used to find a meaning to each movement depending on the responses you were given.

Scientists have been intrigued with the complexity of animal communication and have forever wanted to learn their language. So any job that a person comes in contact with any animal, even a robin on the street, could count as the study of animal communication. Just the fact an animal is there and you can see it is one of the simplest levels of communication. But there are some jobs in particular that involve animal communication.

Zoologists or even zookeepers are always communicating with animals since they are constantly with them. Also zoology is the study of animals, including the way they communicate.

Ethologists are people who study animal instincts. They will study why this animal has certain behavior and if it is a learned behavior. For each animal they study, ethologists prepare an ethogram, which is a list that describes behavior patterns of an animal. Today ethologists have many different ethograms including species of insects, fish, birds, and mammals.

Ecologists study animal relationships. For example animals never live on their own, in one way or another they have to have other organisms’ help. Animals that eat plants for food rely on plants since plants are living and that makes them an organism. Ecologists also look for relationships between animals and where they live. Does this animal depend on the plants growing in its habitat is one question they try to answer.

Veterinarians and animal trainers also are in a way studying animals and the way they communicate. Veterinarians and animal behavior specialists have come to learn a dog’s wagging tail is a sign of happiness. Animal trainers also seem to learn much about the animal they train and what actions mean what feelings.

Types of Sciences

Many different sciences are used in animal communication. This field has also fascinated many different types of scientists. The science of vocal animal communication is called bioacoustics. Acoustics means sound and bio means life, therefore bioacoustics is life-sounds. So, the acoustic science in general is used as well as ethology, neuroscience, social sciences, and animal behavior.

Ethology is a “branch” of zoology used to study animal instincts. Ethology deals with the marking of territory, courtship, mating and caring for babies. This also deals with the building of the animal’s behavior. Ethologists ask whether something was a learned behavior or an instinct.

Neuroscience is a science dealing with nerves and brain functions. So this is used in animal communication to determine things within the nervous system.

Social sciences focus on reproduction and social communications. When birds use different displays to attract a mate social science comes in because this is a social experience. Also social science is used when a troop of monkeys fill the trees and various vocal sounds fill the forest, scientists who specialize in social sciences will question what these sounds mean within the troop depending on their actions since we have not yet cracked the animal code.

Animal behavior is of course the study of animal behavior. This area fills in the blanks as to all the questions left after many individual scientific studies. This is basically logical reasoning in animal form. It is the study of animal behavior in general.

Animal communication research report is continued here....