Plains zebra 2019 multimodal communication dataset

<p>Multimodality is a virtually ubiquitous feature of communication. With the increasing interest in how animals, including humans, use multimodal and multicomponent signals in social interactions, there is an acute need for standardized and rigorous tools that will allow us to visualize, and analyze these signals as they occur in naturalistic interactions as a complex, integrated system. Network theory is a powerful methodology for intuitively visualizing and investigating the relationships between entities. Here, we propose a new application of network theory for analyzing multimodal communication. Using a case study of natural multimodal interactions in wild plains zebras (<em>Equus quagga</em>), we introduce the descriptive power of network metrics by providing an objective set of metrics to: (a) describe the relationships between simultaneously produced signals within and between modalities; and (b) infer signal meaning and function. Here we make available the multimodal communication data collected during our 2019 field season.</p>