Videos related to: Noise matters: Elephants show risk-avoidance behaviour in response to human-generated seismic cues

African elephants (Loxodonta africana) use many sensory modes to gather
information about their environment, including the detection of seismic,
or ground-based, vibrations. Seismic information is known to include
elephant-generated signals, but also potentially encompasses biotic cues
that are commonly referred to as ‘noise’. To investigate seismic
information transfer in elephants beyond communication, here we tested the
hypothesis that wild elephants detect and discriminate between seismic
vibrations that differ in their noise types, whether elephant- or
human-generated. We played three types of seismic vibrations to elephants:
seismic recordings of elephants (elephant-generated), white noise
(human-generated), and a combined track (elephant & human
generated). We found evidence of both detection of seismic noise and
discrimination between the two treatments containing human-generated
noise. In particular, we found evidence of retreat behaviour, where
seismic tracks with human-generated noise caused elephants to move further
away from the trial location. We conclude that seismic noise are cues that
contain biologically-relevant information for elephants that they can
associate with risk. This expands our understanding of how elephants use
seismic information, with implications for elephant sensory ecology and
conservation management.