Culture and society in matrilineal whales

母系鲸鱼的文化和社会

• 批准号: RGPIN-2014-06534
• 负责人: Whitehead, Hal
• 金额: $ 3.28万
• 依托单位: Dalhousie University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2017-01-01 至 2018-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=632104
• 关键词: Culture; society; matrilineal; whales

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.

文化是人类的标志性特征。然而，文化被定义为从其他个体那里学到并在社区内共享的行为，也是非人类生物学的一部分。与父母到后代的基因遗传相比，文化的传播方式多种多样，例如从同龄人到同龄人或从老师到学生。这样的对比意味着，具有重要文化的物种，与基因在个体间的信息传递中占绝对主导地位的物种相比，可能表现出截然不同的行为。一些最有力的动物文化证据是在鲸鱼和海豚中，一些最引人注目的结果来自我对抹香鲸的长期研究计划。了解鲸鱼文化的作用是我研究的长期目标。我们在东太平洋和北大西洋都对抹香鲸进行了实地研究。雌性和年轻的抹香鲸以家庭为单位生活和移动。在太平洋，我们发现每个社会单位都是一个氏族的成员。每个氏族都有成千上万的动物，它们的声音方言、运动、觅食成功率和出生率都不同。然而，两个氏族可能使用同一地区，他们没有遗传上的区别。这就意味着，这些部落之间的差异是文化上的，这使得部落成为一个理想的系统，在这个系统中，可以评估文化在动物中的重要性。在我研究的下一阶段，我们将使用吸盘标签，这些标签会在鲸鱼身上停留几个小时，记录它们的发声和动作，为了了解不同族群的动物在移动和对环境的反应方式上是否存在一致的细微差异，就像人类族群之间的差异一样我们还将测量不同族群动物的激素水平，以测试文化是否会影响抹香鲸的生理机能，就像对人类一样。象征性标记，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，以测试尾波被用作氏族成员身份的象征性标记的假设。在东加勒比海，多米尼加岛，我们有一个更密切关注的研究，个体鲸鱼和它们的社会单位，每个单位大约有九只动物，都是详细已知的。这里的重点将是在社会单位的水平上的文化差异，以及个人的角色和个性。关闭新斯科舍省，我们研究第二个母系鲸鱼物种，长鳍领航鲸。随着这个项目的发展，我们将首先考察他们的社会制度在多大程度上是基于亲属关系。然后，我们将寻找不同社会单位的文化行为特征，特别是发声。为了增加社会结构研究的价值，我计划开发一种表征动物社交网络的新方法。在考虑了其他影响个体之间联系的因素之后，它将直接衡量个体之间的联系，这些因素包括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，一个额外的文化维度，因为我们试图了解鲸鱼本身作为具有文化和社会角色的个体，以及保护它们的种群。此外，在考虑人类文化的非凡进化时，我对鲸鱼的研究提供了一个不寻常但有力的背景，即复杂文化在一个非常不同的环境中的平行进化。