The reach of culture into the evolutionary biology of whales

文化对鲸鱼进化生物学的影响

• 批准号: RGPIN-2019-04291
• 负责人: Whitehead, Hal
• 金额: $ 4.74万
• 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: 2022
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2022-01-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=745940
• 关键词: reach; culture; into; evolutionary; biology

Culture-behaviour or information transmitted by social learning and shared within groups-is a system of inheritance whereby information moves from one animal to another. In common with genes, culture evolves, and as it does so can influence ecological systems and genetic evolution. My research programme strives to trace the reach of culture into the lives and evolution of whales and dolphins, a group for which culture is particularly significant. I concentrate on the large toothed whales as their matrilineally-based and hierarchically-structured social systems promote the evolution of group-specific cultures, which are accessible for study. I lead 20-30 year-long term field studies on three species--the sperm whale, pilot whale and northern bottlenose whale--in which we collect and link individual photo-identification, acoustic, behavioural, genetic and other data. Using the data from these field projects, we will examine the reach of culture into evolutionary biology.  My primary study species is the sperm whale. Our research in the Caribbean provides individual-, dyadic-, and social-unit-level profiles of social relationships, vocalization repertoires and kinship, whereas in the Pacific we have ocean-scale data. Sperm whales communicate using codas, stereotyped patterns of clicks.  Dialects of these codas characterize clans, large-scale socio-cultural entities with overlapping distributions but clan-specific behaviour.  These clans are our primary avenue to whale culture. We will plot the geographical distributions of the clans at scales ranging from the eastern Caribbean Sea to globally, assessing overlap and avoidance among clans in different oceans. Within clans, we will measure the rates of change in overall repertoire, as well as in the structure of particular coda types. Then, we will ask whether dialects are more constrained where clan overlaps are greater, indicating that the dialects function as symbolic markers of clan identity. Experimental playbacks of codas characteristic of different clans will allow us to test this hypothesis. If clans differ in their rates of dialect evolution, this indicates that higher-level cultural processes, such as conformity, vary between clans. Using a range of cultural behaviour in addition to coda dialects, we will also assess whether pairs of clans in the Pacific and Atlantic possess similar suites of characteristic behaviour, indicating parallel patterns of cultural evolution. The proposed research is extremely original; it addresses completely novel areas of enquiry, including parallel cultural evolution, and hierarchies of cultural identity. It uses and develops innovative methodology such as dynamic social network analysis and playback technology. The significance of non-human culture to ecology and evolution is increasingly being appreciated, as is its role in considerations of management and conservation, both within Canada and internationally.

文化是通过社会学习传播并在群体中共享的行为或信息，是一种遗传系统，信息通过这种系统从一种动物传递到另一种动物。与基因一样，文化也会进化，并且在进化过程中会影响生态系统和基因进化。我的研究计划致力于追踪文化的影响到鲸鱼和海豚的生活和进化，这是一个文化特别重要的群体。我专注于大型齿鲸作为他们的母系为基础的和等级结构的社会体系促进了群体特定文化的进化，这是可访问的研究。我领导了对抹香鲸、领航鲸和北方露脊鲸这三个物种长达20-30年的实地研究，在这些研究中，我们收集并联系了个体的照片识别、声音、行为、遗传和其他数据。利用这些实地项目的数据，我们将研究文化对进化生物学的影响。我的主要研究物种是抹香鲸。我们在加勒比的研究提供了社会关系、发声曲目和亲属关系的个人、二元和社会单位层面的概况，而在太平洋，我们有海洋规模的数据。抹香鲸使用尾语交流，这些尾语的方言是氏族的特征，这些氏族是大规模的社会文化实体，分布重叠，但有氏族特有的行为。这些氏族是我们了解鲸鱼文化的主要途径。我们将绘制从东加勒比海到全球范围的氏族地理分布图，评估不同海洋氏族之间的重叠和避免。在氏族内部，我们将测量整体曲目的变化率，以及特定尾声类型的结构。然后，我们会问，方言是否更受限制，氏族重叠更大，表明方言的功能作为氏族身份的象征性标志。实验回放不同氏族的尾声特征将使我们能够测试这一假设。如果氏族的方言演变速度不同，这表明更高层次的文化过程，如一致性，在氏族之间存在差异。使用一系列的文化行为，除了尾方言，我们还将评估是否对氏族在太平洋和大西洋拥有类似的套房的特征行为，表明文化演变的平行模式。拟议中的研究是非常原始的;它解决了完全新颖的调查领域，包括平行的文化进化和文化身份的层次结构。它使用和开发创新的方法，如动态社交网络分析和回放技术。非人类文化对生态和进化的重要性越来越受到重视，在加拿大和国际上，它在管理和保护方面的作用也越来越受到重视。