Communication and Cognition

Within vocal communication, current research questions cover predator evasion and alarm calling, dominance relationships, and individuality.
Our data collection ranges from audio recording of individuals, microphones deployed on collars, experiments including playbacks of previously recorded and manipulated calls, to machine learning methods. These, in combination with the use of long-term behavioural and life history data, allow for in-depth studies on the communication system of meerkats.

Spatial-coordination based studies look at the ways in which meerkats remain cooperative as a group and maintain cohesion through environmental or social situations and changes. Long-term GPS mapping data of overall group movements, alongside focal studies and GPS collars, allow for many questions in this area to be answered extensively.

Much of a meerkat's coordination is closely linked to their communication and therefore they are regularly studied alongside each other. Additionally, understanding the cognitive abilities of meerkats through in-field experiments such as presentations of novel objects, can help to further the understanding of how these mechanisms develop, and the extent of their cognitive abilities.

Through this research, it has been discovered that the meerkats have a vocal repertoire of 30+ call types, use democratic decision-making methods and vocal communication when coordinating group movement, can express changes in perceived predation risk through discrete call types, and will alter their communication and coordination in response to both social and environmental factors. This is just the surface of findings so far, with an expanse of studies exploring the vast complexity of their communicative and cognitive capabilities.