Interspecies communication

Interspecies communication is communication between different species of animals, plants, fungi or bacteria.

Cooperative interspecies communication implies the sharing and understanding of information from two or more species that work towards the benefit of both species (mutualism).

Since the 1970s, primatologist Sue Savage-Rumbaugh has been working with primates at Georgia State University's Language Research Center (LRC), and more recently, the Iowa Primate Learning Sanctuary. In 1985, using lexigram symbols, a keyboard and monitor, and other computer technology, Savage-Rumbaugh began her groundbreaking work with Kanzi, a male bonobo (P. paniscus). Her research has made significant contributions to a growing body of work in sociobiology studying language learning in non-human primates and exploring the role of language and communication as an evolutionary mechanism.

Koko, a lowland gorilla, began learning a modified American Sign Language as an infant, when Francine "Penny" Patterson, PhD, started working with her in 1975. Thirty-some years later, Penny and Koko continue to work together at the Gorilla Foundation in one of the longest interspecies communication studies ever conducted, the only one with gorillas. Koko now has a vocabulary of over 1000 signs, and understands even more spoken English.

On 26 April 1998, Koko the gorilla gave an AOL live chat. Sign language was used to relay to Koko questions from the online audience of 7,811 AOL members, the fifth most popular chat in AOL's history. The following is an excerpt from the live chat.

Research observing cooperative communication has largely focused on primates, as well as predatory animals. Red-fronted lemurs and sifakas have reciprocal recognition of one another's alarm calls. The same has been found in West African Diana monkey and Campbell's monkeys. When one species elicits an alarm signal specific to a certain predator, the other species react in the same pattern as the species that called. For example, leopards hunt both species by capitalizing the elements of stealth and surprise. If the monkeys detect the leopard before it attacks (usually resulting in mobbing), the leopard will typically not attack. Therefore, when a leopard alarm call is given both species respond by positioning near the leopard signaling that it has been found out. It also seems that the monkeys are able to distinguish a leopard alarm call from, for example, a raptor alarm call. When a raptor alarm call is given, the monkeys respond by moving towards the forest floor and away from aerial attack. Therefore, it is not simply that the monkeys act upon hearing the alarm calls but rather they are able to actually extract particular information from a call. Responses to heterospecific alarm calls are not confined to simian species but have also been found in the Sciuridae species: yellow-bellied marmot and the golden-mantled ground squirrel. Researchers have also determined that species of bird are able to understand, or at least respond, to alarms calls by species of mammals and vice versa; red squirrels' acoustic response to raptors is near-identical to that of birds, making the latter also aware to a potential predatory threat, while eastern chipmunks are keen to mobbing calls by eastern tufted titmice. Whether heterospecific understanding is a learned behavior or not is also of interest. Ramakrishnan and Coss (2000) found that age and interspecies experience were important factors in the ability for bonnet macaques to recognize heterospecific calls. Macaques who were younger and exposed longer to other species' alarm calls were more likely to correctly respond to heterospecific alarm calls. A key component of this early learning was the reinforcement of a predatory threat. That is, when an alarm call was given a corresponding threat had to be presented in order to make the association. Therefore, interspecies communication may not be an innate ability but rather a sort of imprinting that may have to be coupled with an intense emotion (fear) early in life.

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