Meerkats - remarkable communication experts

Meerkats are on the move around the clock, as a group, and in constant communication: they maintain contact, protect themselves against enemies and coordinate social interactions. Hardly any other animal can be observed as comprehensively as the meerkat. The function of their communication is being researched from many angles: What information do the receivers take from the calls? What environmental stimuli cause the caller to make a certain type of call? Understanding communication in animal societies also provides insight into the evolution of human language.

The key to studying animal societies is to observe them in their natural habitat. At best, this observation does not disturb the animal behaviour, and is done in close enough proximity that social interactions can be observed in detail. How can this be achieved, you ask? The answer is to get the animals so habituated to our presence that they largely ignore us.

This technique has been accomplished at the Kalahari Research Centre (KRC): over the past 25 years more than 400 researchers have studied meerkats and other species there. They collect data under extreme field conditions (45°C in the shade). However, extreme conditions are not the only challenge: processing the data so that it can be easily used by researchers worldwide is another important hurdle. The huge amount of data, collected by many different people on tablets, requires a strict, objective protocol. Using this protocol, the Kalahari Research Centre provides access to unique long-term data for a wide range of disciplines. More than 10 international research teams from the fields of animal behaviour, ecology, physiology and genetics have published over 50 papers in the last two years.

Marta Manser is behavioral biologist and Head of the Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Sciences at the MNF of University of Zurich. She has headed the Kalahari Research Centre in South Africa since 2017, where she has been researching meerkat communication since 1995.

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