LUKE RENDELL
 

Graduated University College of North Wales, Bangor, UK

• 1995 1st Class Honours in Marine Zoology.
• 1995-1998: Research assistant with cetacean group in the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, Oxford University Department of Zoology, with Dr. Jonathan Gordon.
• 1998-Present: PhD programme at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, under supervision of Hal Whitehead. Project title: Cultural transmission of coda dialects in sperm whales.Research interests: Cetacean bioacoustics, social evolution and ecology; cultural transmission and the evolution of culture.

ABSTRACT

CULTURE IN CETACEAN POPULATIONS...Evidence for culture in cetaceans compares well to that available for primates, whether it be from experimental investigation of social learning abilities or field evidence of behavioural variation. For example, bottlenose dolphins are among the best nonhuman imitators. Communities of bottlenose dolphins forage in different ways within the same bay; some interact with humans in generations-old fishing 'cooperatives'. Killer whales live their lives in pods that vary in dialect and foraging strategy within a hierarchical social structure, and may even teach hunting techniques to their offspring. Sperm whales live in social units that belong to huge oceanic vocal 'clans' that may also constitute important social boundaries. Such 'multicultural' societies are incredibly rare outside humans. But so what? We contend that we will not be able to fully understand the past and ongoing evolution of cetaceans without considering the cultural aspects of their lives, and that such consideration also has implications for management and conservation. With respect to evolution: cultural differences may have been the starting point for the on-going speciation of 'resident' and 'transident' killer whales, gene-culture co-evolution may be behind low levels of genetic diversity in some species, and extended post-menopausal life spans in killer and pilot whales may be explained by the information value of grandmothers. With respect to management, understanding how cetacean populations adapt, culturally or otherwise, to changing environments is of critical importance and will inform attempts to rehabilitate captive animals, respond to mass strandings, and manage human interactions with cetaceans through fishing and tourism.