Multilevel animal societies can emerge from cultural transmission

Cantor, Maurício; Shoemaker, Lauren G.; Cabral, Reniel B.; Flores, Cesar O.; Varga, Melinda; Whitehead, Hal

doi:10.1038/ncomms9091

Cited by 108 publications

(104 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…Long-term studies of nonhuman animal species in their natural habitats have demonstrated that many species respond to, and learn from, social information (4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9). Nonhuman animals also transmit group-specific behavior through what could be considered rudimentary forms of cultural transmission (10)(11)(12)(13)(14). However, cultural transmission in humans differs markedly from that in nonhuman animals in both its extent and structural complexity (15,16).…”

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confidence: 99%

Cumulative cultural learning: Development and diversity

Legare

2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

138

101

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The complexity and variability of human culture is unmatched by any other species. Humans live in culturally constructed niches filled with artifacts, skills, beliefs, and practices that have been inherited, accumulated, and modified over generations. A causal account of the complexity of human culture must explain its distinguishing characteristics: It is cumulative and highly variable within and across populations. I propose that the psychological adaptations supporting cumulative cultural transmission are universal but are sufficiently flexible to support the acquisition of highly variable behavioral repertoires. This paper describes variation in the transmission practices (teaching) and acquisition strategies (imitation) that support cumulative cultural learning in childhood. Examining flexibility and variation in caregiver socialization and children's learning extends our understanding of evolution in living systems by providing insight into the psychological foundations of cumulative cultural transmissionthe cornerstone of human cultural diversity.cumulative culture | cultural evolution | cross-cultural comparison | teaching | imitation

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confidence: 99%

Cumulative cultural learning: Development and diversity

Legare

2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

138

101

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“…Females, and sometimes males, typically spend their lives with their mothers and other maternal relatives. Not only does this association increase the potential learning period and number of models, but the behavior within these matrilineal social units may become very stereotyped, through processes such as conformism and symbolic marking (82). These factors increase the range of ways culture can affect genes, especially the matrilineally transmitted mitochondrial genes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gene–culture coevolution in whales and dolphins

Whitehead

2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Whales and dolphins (Cetacea) have excellent social learning skills as well as a long and strong mother-calf bond. These features produce stable cultures, and, in some species, sympatric groups with different cultures. There is evidence and speculation that this cultural transmission of behavior has affected gene distributions. Culture seems to have driven killer whales into distinct ecotypes, which may be incipient species or subspecies. There are ecotypespecific signals of selection in functional genes that correspond to cultural foraging behavior and habitat use by the different ecotypes. The five species of whale with matrilineal social systems have remarkably low diversity of mtDNA. Cultural hitchhiking, the transmission of functionally neutral genes in parallel with selective cultural traits, is a plausible hypothesis for this low diversity, especially in sperm whales. In killer whales the ecotype divisions, together with founding bottlenecks, selection, and cultural hitchhiking, likely explain the low mtDNA diversity. Several cetacean species show habitat-specific distributions of mtDNA haplotypes, probably the result of mother-offspring cultural transmission of migration routes or destinations. In bottlenose dolphins, remarkable small-scale differences in haplotype distribution result from maternal cultural transmission of foraging methods, and largescale redistributions of sperm whale cultural clans in the Pacific have likely changed mitochondrial genetic geography. With the acceleration of genomics new results should come fast, but understanding gene-culture coevolution will be hampered by the measured pace of research on the socio-cultural side of cetacean biology.gene-culture coevolution | Cetacea | cultural hitchhiking E volution is dependent on inheritance. Although the transmission of genes is primary, it is not the only mode of inheritance. As recently articulated in the extended evolutionary synthesis, inheritance extends beyond genes to include epigenetic inheritance, physiological inheritance, ecological inheritance, social transmission, and cultural inheritance, all of which can lead to heritability of phenotype (1). From the perspective of modern humans, cultural inheritance, which directly determines much of our own behavior as well as indirectly determining how we affect the global environment, has particular salience (2).Culture, as an inheritance system, can be defined as behavior or information shared within a community that is acquired from conspecifics through some form of social learning (3), i.e., learning that is influenced by observation of, or interaction with, another animal or its products (4). Social learning comes in a range of forms including imitation, emulation, teaching, and local enhancement (5), all of which can promote behavioral similarity between learner and model. Culture may include a wide range of behavior, including foraging methods, vocalizations, diet selection, social behavior, movement, habitat use, social structure, and play (e.g., refs. 3 and 6); potentiall...

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“…Evidence suggests that, for other social cetaceans, variability in the vocal repertoire can be both socially driven [e.g., killer whales (Yurk et al, 2002;Riesch et al, 2006;Deecke et al, 2010;Filatova et al, 2012;Crance et al, 2014;Musser et al, 2014) and sperm whales (e.g., Rendell et al, 2012;Cantor et al, 2015)] and behaviorally driven [e.g., killer whales (Filatova et al, 2013;Holt et al, 2013)]. Shortfinned pilot whales are a highly social cetacean, known to form stable social groups for a decade or more (HeimlichBoran and Hall, 1993;Mahaffy et al, 2015).…”

Section: Future Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Acoustic differentiation of Shiho- and Naisa-type short-finned pilot whales in the Pacific Ocean

Cise

Roch

Baird

et al. 2017

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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Divergence in acoustic signals used by different populations of marine mammals can be caused by a variety of environmental, hereditary, or social factors, and can indicate isolation between those populations. Two types of genetically and morphologically distinct short-finned pilot whales, called the Naisa-and Shiho-types when first described off Japan, have been identified in the Pacific Ocean. Acoustic differentiation between these types would support their designation as sub-species or species, and improve the understanding of their distribution in areas where genetic samples are difficult to obtain. Calls from two regions representing the two types were analyzed using 24 recordings from Hawai'i (Naisa-type) and 12 recordings from the eastern Pacific Ocean (Shiho-type). Calls from the two types were significantly differentiated in median start frequency, frequency range, and duration, and were significantly differentiated in the cumulative distribution of start frequency, frequency range, and duration. Gaussian mixture models were used to classify calls from the two different regions with 74% accuracy, which was significantly greater than chance. The results of these analyses indicate that the two types are acoustically distinct, which supports the hypothesis that the two types may be separate sub-species.

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Multilevel animal societies can emerge from cultural transmission

Cited by 108 publications

References 69 publications

Cumulative cultural learning: Development and diversity

Cumulative cultural learning: Development and diversity

Gene–culture coevolution in whales and dolphins

Acoustic differentiation of Shiho- and Naisa-type short-finned pilot whales in the Pacific Ocean

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