Valeria Torti

Valeria Torti
Università degli Studi di Torino | UNITO · Dipartimento di Scienze della Vita e Biologia dei Sistemi

PhD
Research Technician in Bioacoustics

About

79
Publications
12,860
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
821
Citations
Introduction
Dr. Valeria Torti is a Research Technician at the Department of Life Sciences And Systems Biology at the University of Torino. A common thread throughout Valeria's research career has been joining her bioacoustics and ethological work with the biodiversity conservation issue. Her work in Madagascar investigated vocal communication in indris and demonstrated that patterns of vocal communication are much more complex that what usually thought.
Additional affiliations
December 2019 - present
Università degli Studi di Torino
Position
  • Technician
Education
October 2010 - April 2013
Università degli Studi di Torino
Field of study
  • Evolutionary Biology and Biodiversity Conservation

Publications

Publications (79)
Article
Full-text available
Citation: Fioccardi, A.; Donno, D.; Razafindrakoto, Z.R.; Tombozara, N.; Henintsoa, S.; Mahitasoa, E.; Torti, V.; Solofoniaina, M.; Rosso, L.; Gamba, G.; et al. Assessing a "Least-Concern" Red List Tree Species from Madagascar Used in Traditional Medicine: Morella spathulata (Myricaceae) Phyto-Compounds and Anti-Inflammatory Properties. Plants 2024...
Article
The study of how animals adapt their behaviors depending on weather variables has gained particular significance in the context of climate change. This exploration offers insights into endangered species' potential threats and provides information on the direction to take in conservation activities. In this context, noninvasive, cost‐effective, and...
Article
Full-text available
Animal songs differ from calls in function and structure, and have comparative and translational value, showing similarities to human music. Rhythm in music is often distributed in quantized classes of intervals known as rhythmic categories. These classes have been found in the songs of a few nonhuman species but never in their calls. Are rhythmic...
Article
Full-text available
Background The aerial parts of Micromeria madagascariensis Baker and M. flagellaris Baker are used by the population of the Vakinankaratra and Itasy regions (Madagascar) to treat breathing difficulty, fever and/or headache, wounds, and sores. Purpose This work aimed to characterise plant materials from M. madagascariensis and M. flagellaris to rep...
Article
Full-text available
Duets are one of the most fascinating displays in animal vocal communication, where two animals fine-tune the timing of their emissions to create a coordinated signal. Duetting behavior is widespread in the animal kingdom and is present in insects, birds, and mammals. Duets are essential to regulate activities within and between social units. Few s...
Article
Full-text available
In studying communicative signals, we can think of flexibility as a necessary correlate of creativity. Flexibility enables animals to find practical solutions and appropriate behaviors in mutable situations. In this study, we aimed to quantify the degree of flexibility in the songs of indris (Indri indri), the only singing lemur, using three differ...
Article
Full-text available
Simple Summary Many animal species use body odours and secretions to communicate with conspecifics. In this study, we observed wild lemurs (diademed sifakas) to understand how and where they deposit scent marks, and whether rank and sex influence the scent-marking behaviour. We found that lemurs deposit their scent marks by rubbing different parts...
Article
Full-text available
Nonlinear phenomena (NLP) in animal vocalizations arise from irregularities in the oscillation of the vocal folds. Various non-mutually exclusive hypotheses have been put forward to explain the occurrence of NLP, from adaptive to physiological ones. Non-human primates often display NLP in their vocalizations, yet the communicative role of these fea...
Article
Full-text available
The growing concern for the ongoing biodiversity loss drives researchers towards practical and large-scale automated systems to monitor wild animal populations. Primates, with most species threatened by extinction, face substantial risks. We focused on the vocal activity of the indri (Indri indri) recorded in Maromizaha Forest (Madagascar) from 201...
Article
Full-text available
Contrary to spontaneous yawning, yawn contagion occurs when yawning in a subject (responder) is elicited by the yawns of others (triggers). Yawn contagion has been associated with inter-individual synchronisation, activity coordination and possibly emotional contagion, based on the perception–action mechanism. We collected data on yawn contagion an...
Preprint
Full-text available
Nonlinear phenomena (NLP) in animal vocalizations arise from irregularities in the oscillation of the vocal folds. Various hypotheses have been put forward to explain the occurrence of NLP, from adaptive to physiological ones. Non-human primates often display NLP in their vocalizations, yet the meaning of these features is still unclear. We present...
Article
Vocal and gestural sequences of many primate species conform to two principles of compression: the compensation between the length of a construct and that of its constituents (Menzerath-Altmann law) and an inverse relationship between signal length and occurrence (Zipf's law of abbreviation). Although Zipf's law is considered a universal in animal...
Article
Since the discovery that rhythmic abilities are universal in humans, temporal features of vocal communication have greatly interested researchers studying animal communication. Rhythmic patterns are a valuable tool for species discrimination, mate choice, and individual recognition. A recent study showed that bird songs and human music share rhythm...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
A comparative perspective aiming to unravel the biological roots of rhythm relies on detecting the shared features between human music and other primate vocalizations and identifying the selective pressures shaping them. For example, one universal of music characterizing all human cultures is categorical rhythms. Categorical rhythms occur when the...
Article
Full-text available
Strepsirrhine vocalisations are extraordinarily diverse and cross-species comparisons are needed to explore how this variability evolved. We contributed to the investigation of primate acoustic diversity by comparing the vocal repertoire of two sym-patric lemur species, Propithecus diadema and Indri indri. These diurnal species belong to the same t...
Article
Full-text available
In mammals, olfactory communication plays an essential role in territorial and mating dynamics. Scent depositions in various species, including lemurs, can be placed via marking or overmarking (marking over previous depositions). We focused on the role that marking and overmarking play in territorial defence and intrasexual competition. We investig...
Article
Full-text available
Parent-offspring interactions are essential to interpret animal social evolution and behavior, but their role in mediating acoustic communication in animals that interact vocally is still unclear. Increasing evidence shows that primate vocal communication is way more flexible than previously assumed, and research on this topic can provide further i...
Article
Full-text available
Deforestation around the world is a major threat to primates. Understanding primate species’ habitat and dietary requirements is critical in creating effective conservation management plans. Indri indri, a Critically Endangered lemur species from Madagascar’s eastern rainforests, has a diet dominated by leaves. We conducted a long-term study of I....
Article
Full-text available
Indris (Indri indri) are group-living lemurs which occupy stable territories over several years and perform remarkable long-distance vocal displays. Vocal exchanges between long-term territory neighbours may contribute to assessing reciprocal resource holding potentials, thus adaptively reducing the costs of territorial defence by limiting aggressi...
Article
The complexity of primates’ singing behavior has long gathered the attention of researchers interested in understanding the selective pressures underpinning the evolution of language. Among these pressures, a link between territoriality, pair- living, and singing displays has been suggested. Historically, singing primates have been found in a few t...
Article
Full-text available
Soil fungal diversity was studied by next-generation sequencing and compared in two different Malagasy ecosystems, the first a New Protected Area (Maromizaha NAP) that is a rich humid evergreen forest and the second a degraded and declined deciduous forest (Andaravina) whose area has been also eroded. Both areas, however, have comparable annual rai...
Preprint
Full-text available
The complexity of primates’ singing behavior has long gathered the attention of researchers interested in understanding the selective pressures underpinning the evolution of language. Among these pressures, a link between territoriality, pair-living, and singing displays has been suggested. Historically, singing primates have been found in a few ta...
Article
What are the origins of musical rhythm? One approach to the biology and evolution of music consists in finding common musical traits across species. These similarities allow biomusicologists to infer when and how musical traits appeared in our species¹. A parallel approach to the biology and evolution of music focuses on finding statistical univers...
Article
Full-text available
Research on the gut microbiome may help with increasing our understanding of primate health with species’ ecology, evolution, and behavior. In particular, microbiome-related information has the potential to clarify ecology issues, providing knowledge in support of wild primates conservation and their associated habitats. Indri (Indri indri) is the...
Article
Full-text available
Animal communication has long been thought to be subject to pressures and constraints associated with social relationships. However, our understanding of how the nature and quality of social relationships relates to the use and evolution of communication is limited by a lack of directly comparable methods across multiple levels of analysis. Here, w...
Article
Full-text available
The critically endangered indri (Indri indri) is the largest extant lemur species and its population size is projected to decline over the next three generations due to habitat loss, hunting and climate change. Accurate information on the demographic parameters driving the population dynamics of indri is urgently needed to help decision-making rega...
Article
Full-text available
Here, we investigated the possible linkages among geophagy, soil characteristics, and gut mycobiome of indri (Indri indri), an endangered lemur species able to survive only in wild conditions. The soil eaten by indri resulted in enriched secondary oxide-hydroxides and clays, together with a high concentration of specific essential micronutrients. T...
Article
Full-text available
Vocal and gestural sequences of several primates have been found to conform to two general principles of information compression: the compensation between the duration of a construct and that of its components (Menzerath–Altmann law) and an inverse relationship between signal duration and its occurrence (Zipf’s law of abbreviation). Even though Zip...
Article
Full-text available
In animal vocal communication, the development of adult-like vocalization is fundamental to interact appropriately with conspecifics. However, the factors that guide ontogenetic changes in the acoustic features remains poorly understood. In contrast with a historical view of nonhuman primate vocal production as substantially innate, recent research...
Chapter
Animal vocal communication serves various purposes. It can mediate both intraspecific and interspecific, or intrasexual and intersexual communication in several different contexts (e.g., in antipredator, reproductive, and cohesion events). Increasing our knowledge of the physiological mechanisms and acoustic principles underlying sound production a...
Article
Full-text available
Territorial pair-living species tend to occupy and defend stable areas, assumed to contain all the resources needed for the lifetime of the group. Furthermore, groups have to mediate spatial relationships with neighboring groups. We investigated the relationship between social and spatial dynamics at the intra- and intergroup level in a pair-living...
Article
Animal acoustic communication often takes the form of complex sequences, composed of multiple distinct acoustic units, which can vary in their degree of stereotypy. Studies of sequence variation may contribute to our understanding of the structural flexibility of primates' songs, which can provide essential ecological and behavioral information abo...
Preprint
Full-text available
We used a logic distance to investigate intra and inter-individual variation in the phrase combinatorics of a singing primate, the indri, which inhabits the montane rain forests of Madagascar. Indris combine long notes, short single notes, and phrases consisting of two, three, four, or five units with slightly descending frequency. We calculated th...
Preprint
We used a logic distance to investigate intra and inter-individual variation in the phrase combinatorics of a singing primate, the indri, which inhabits the montane rain forests of Madagascar. Indris combine long notes, short single notes, and phrases consisting of two, three, four, or five units with slightly descending frequency. We calculated th...
Conference Paper
In the dense tropical rainforests of Madagascar, visual communication is impeded by obstacles. Lemurs use scent marking to communicate at a short distance and loud calls to communicate at a long range. The Indri (Indri indri) is a diurnal primate that emits choruses of three distinct types. The song types are essential in advertising position withi...
Article
Monogamy is a rare strategy among mammals but relatively common among primates. The study of the evolution of monogamy in mammals and primates is lacking empirical studies that assess the relationship between a pair‐living social organization and genetic monogamy. Sexual or genetic monogamy can only be assessed by performing molecular analyses and...
Article
Full-text available
Although there is a growing number of researches focusing on acoustic communication, the lack of shared analytic approaches leads to inconsistency among studies. Here, we introduced a computational method used to examine 3360 calls recorded from wild indris (Indri indri) from 2005–2018. We split each sound into ten portions of equal length and, fro...
Article
No PDF available ABSTRACT In the dense tropical rainforests of Madagascar, visual communication is impeded by obstacles. Lemurs use scent marking to communicate at a short distance and loud calls to communicate at a long range. The Indri (Indri indri) is a diurnal primate that emits choruses of three distinct types. The song types are essential in...
Article
Ethnopharmacological relevance: Characterized by one of the highest rates of endemism and biodiversity in the world, Madagascar provides a wide variety of medicinal plants, that could represent a potential source of new drugs. The main aim of this study was to investigate the potential medicinal properties of the plant species used by indigenous pe...
Article
Full-text available
Estimating the number of animals participating in a choral display may contribute reliable information on animal population estimates, particularly when environmental or behavioral factors restrict the possibility of visual surveys. Difficulties in providing a reliable estimate of the number of singers in a chorus are many (e.g., background noise m...
Data
Summary of the dataset. Summary of the dataset with group ID, site, year of the recording, individual, sex, number of singers (mean+sd), group size (mean+sd) and number of days in which the songs were recorded. * symbol denotes that the individual is an adult (aged more than 6 years) at the time of the recording (column Year); R symbol indicates th...
Data
Indri chorus. An extract from a reproductive pair’s duet. (MP4)
Data
Results of the Tukey’s HSD (honestly significant difference) applied to the group size during our study. The groups are listed in order of ascending harmonic means (mean±se). Subset 1: p = 0.122; Subset 2: p = 0.060. (DOCX)
Article
Full-text available
Among the behavioral traits shared by some nonhuman primate species and humans there is singing. Unfortunately, our understanding of animals' rhythmic abilities is still in its infancy. Indris are the only lemurs who sing and live in monogamous pairs, usually forming a group with their offspring. All adult members of a group usually participate in...
Article
Among the behavioral traits shared by some nonhuman primate species and humans there is singing. Unfortunately, our understanding of animals' rhythmic abilities is still in its infancy. Indris are the only lemurs who sing and live in monogamous pairs, usually forming a group with their offspring. All adult members of a group usually participate in...
Article
Full-text available
Chrysophyllum boivinianum (Pierre) Baehni is an endemic plant of Madagascar and Comoros. In Madagascar, it is known by the local name “famelona”. The wood of C. boivinianum is exploited for carpentry as material for building houses and ships. Its leaves are used in traditional medicine to treat fever, muscle pain and scorpion bites as well as to he...
Article
Full-text available
The increasing interest in the evolution of human language has led several fields of research to focus on primate vocal communication. The ‘singing primates’, which produce elaborated and complex sequences of vocalizations, are of particular interest for this topic. Indris (Indri indri) are the only singing lemurs and emit songs whose most distinct...
Poster
Full-text available
Indri (Indri indri), a critically endangered lemur species that inhabits the eastern rainforests of Madagascar, lives in socially monogamous family groups composed of a reproductive pair plus up to four individuals. Indri is considered a territorial species: a group advertises its presence and actively defends its territory through 1) fighting intr...
Article
Full-text available
Madagascar is characterized by one of the highest rates of endemism and biodiversity in the world. Brachylaena preparations are extensively used in Malagasy folk medicine for treating gastrointestinal diseases and blenorrhagia. The aim of this study was a preliminary phytochemical fingerprint of Brachylaena ramiflora leaves infusions and bark decoc...
Article
Territorial, socially monogamous species actively defend their home range against conspecifics to maintain exclusive access to resources such as food or mates. Primates use scent marks and loud calls to signal territory occupancy and limit the risk of intergroup encounters, maximizing their energetic balance. Indri indri is a little-studied territo...
Article
Indris (Indri indri) are the only singing lemurs and produce different types of songs that can be differentiated according to their temporal patterns. The most distinctive portions of the songs are “descending phrases” consisting of 2-5 units. In our study, indri songs were recorded in the Eastern rainforests of Madagascar from 2005 to 2015. All th...
Article
Full-text available
A crucial, common feature of speech and music is that they show non-random structures over time. It is an open question which of the other species share rhythmic abilities with humans, but in most cases the lack of knowledge about their behavioral displays prevents further studies. Indris are the only lemurs who sing. They produce loud howling crie...
Article
Full-text available
The diversity of qualitative approaches and analytical methods has often undermined comparative research on primate vocal repertoires. The purpose of the present work is to introduce a quantitative method based on dynamic time warping to the study of repertoire size in Eulemur spp. We obtained a large sample of calls of E. coronatus, E. flavifrons,...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
In Indri indri, males and females within a social group emit loud, long distance calls in a coordinated manner. An indri may start emitting a vocal utterance before the end of another individual's contribution, resulting in different degrees of overlap between individual songs. This study provides the first quantitative analysis of the individual o...
Article
Contextual variation in the loud calls of strepsirhine primates is poorly understood. To understand whether songs given by indris in different contexts represent acoustically distinct variants and have the potential to elicit context-specific behaviours in conspecific listeners, we investigated the acoustic variability of these songs and the distan...
Article
Full-text available
Active pursuit of extra-pair mating has been reported for Indri indri, the socially monogamous largest living lemur. This study, conducted in a mountain rainforest in eastern Madagascar, presents the first evidence for extra-pair mating of indri and discusses the alternative mating strategy and alteration of the social, territorial, spatial, and vo...