Culture and society in matrilineal whales

文化是人类的标志性特征。然而，文化被定义为从其他人那里学习并在一个社区内共享的行为，也是非人类生物学的一部分。与基因从父母到后代的遗传相比，文化的传播方式多种多样，例如从同伴到同伴或从老师到学生。这种对比意味着，拥有重要文化的物种与那些基因压倒性地主导着从一个人到另一个人的信息传递的物种相比，可能会表现得截然不同。一些最有力的动物养殖证据来自鲸鱼和海豚，一些最令人信服的结果来自我对抹香鲸的长期研究计划。理解文化在鲸鱼中的作用是我研究的长期目标。 我们在东太平洋和北大西洋对抹香鲸进行了实地研究。母抹香鲸和幼抹香鲸在家庭社会单位生活和活动。在太平洋地区，我们发现每个社会单位都是一个氏族的成员。每个氏族包含数千只动物，在他们的声音方言、动作、觅食成功率和出生率方面存在差异。然而，两个氏族可能使用相同的地区，他们在基因上并不是不同的。这意味着氏族之间的差异是文化的，并使氏族成为评估动物文化意义的理想系统。 在我的下一阶段研究中，我们将使用吸盘标签在鲸鱼身上停留几个小时，记录发声和动作，看看不同种族的动物在移动和对环境做出反应的方式之间是否存在一致的细微差异，就像人类种族之间的差异一样。我们还将测量不同种族动物的荷尔蒙水平，以测试文化是否会影响抹香鲸的生理，就像对人类一样。符号标记，即文化符号标记社会群体，从而增加群体之间的区别，有时被认为是人类文化的标志。我们将记录社会单位的行为和发声，因为我们广播了来自不同单位、氏族和地理区域的抹香鲸的发声，以检验尾巴被用作氏族成员身份的象征标志的假设。 在东加勒比海，在多米尼加岛外，我们有一个更集中的研究，在那里我们详细了解了单个鲸鱼和它们的社会单位，每个鲸鱼大约有9种动物。这里的重点将是社会单位层面的文化差异，以及个人的角色和个性。 在新斯科舍省，我们研究了第二种母系鲸鱼--长鳍领航鲸。随着这个项目的发展，我们将首先检查他们的社会制度建立在亲属关系上的程度。然后，我们将寻找具有不同社会单位特征的文化行为，特别是发声。 为了增加社会结构研究的价值，我计划开发一种新的方法来表征动物的社会网络。它将给出一对个体之间的从属关系的直接衡量标准，在考虑了其他影响他们关联率的因素后，比如范围重叠和亲属关系。 我的研究计划增加了一个关键组成部分，即额外的文化层面，因为我们既试图了解鲸鱼本身作为具有文化和社会角色的个体，也试图保护它们的种群。此外，当考虑到人类文化的非凡进化时，我对鲸鱼的研究提供了一个不同寻常但有力的背景，即复杂文化在非常不同的环境中的平行进化。

Culture is the signature characteristic of humans. However culture, defined as behaviour that is learned from other individuals and shared within a community, is also a part of the biology of non-humans. Compared with the parent-to-offspring inheritance of genes, culture moves in a diversity of ways, for instance from peer to peer or teacher to pupil. Such contrasts mean that species with important cultures may behave quite differently compared with those for which genes overwhelmingly dominate the transmission of information from one individual to another. Some of the strongest evidence for animal culture is among the whales and dolphins, and some of the most compelling results come from my long-term research programme on sperm whales. Understanding the role of culture among whales is the long-term goal of my research. We have field studies of sperm whales in both the eastern Pacific and North Atlantic. Female and young sperm whales live and move in family social units. In the Pacific we have found that each social unit is a member of a clan. Clans, each containing thousands of animals, differ in their vocal dialects, movements, success in foraging and birth rates. However, two clans may use the same area, and they are not genetically distinct. This implies that the differences between the clans are cultural, and makes the clans an ideal system within which to assess the significance of culture in animals. In the next phase of my research we will use suction-cup tags that stay on the whales for periods of hours, recording vocalizations and movements, to see whether there are consistent fine-scale differences between the ways animals from the different clans move and respond to their environment, as there are between human ethnic groups. We will also measure hormonal levels of animals in different clans to test whether culture affects physiology in sperm whales, again as it does with humans. Symbolic marking, in which cultural symbols mark social groups, so increasing the distinctions between the groups, is sometimes considered to be the hallmark of human culture. We will record the behaviour and vocalizations of social units as we broadcast the vocalizations of sperm whales from different units, clans and geographic areas in order to test the hypothesis that the codas are used as symbolic markers of clan membership. In the eastern Caribbean, off the island of Dominica, we have a more closely-focussed study where individual whales and their social units, with about nine animals in each, are known in detail. Here the focus will be on cultural differences at the level of the social unit, as well as the role and personality of individuals. Off Nova Scotia, we study a second matrilineal whale species, the long-finned pilot whale. As this project develops, we will first examine the extent to which their social system is based upon kinship. We will then look for cultural behaviour that is characteristic of different social units, especially vocalizations. To add value to studies of social structure, I plan to develop a new approach for characterizing animal social networks. It will give a direct measure of affiliation between pairs of individuals, after accounting for other factors that affect the rates at which they associate, factors such as range overlap and kinship. My research programme adds a key component, an additional cultural dimension, as we try both to understand the whales themselves as individuals with cultures and roles in society, as well as to conserve their populations. Moreover, when considering the extraordinary evolution of human culture, my studies of whales provide an unusual but potent context, that of the parallel evolution of complex cultures in a very different environment.