Cultural revolutions reduce complexity in the songs of humpback whales
Much evidence for non-human culture comes from vocally learned displays, such as the vocal dialects and song displays of birds and cetaceans. While many oscine birds use song complexity to assess male fitness, the role of complexity in humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) song is uncertain owing...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:6253384 2023-05-15T16:36:04+02:00 Cultural revolutions reduce complexity in the songs of humpback whales Allen, Jenny A. Garland, Ellen C. Dunlop, Rebecca A. Noad, Michael J. 2018-11-21 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6253384/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30464066 https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.2088 en eng The Royal Society http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6253384/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30464066 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.2088 © 2018 The Author(s) http://royalsocietypublishing.org/licence Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved. Behaviour Text 2018 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.2088 2019-11-24T01:11:20Z Much evidence for non-human culture comes from vocally learned displays, such as the vocal dialects and song displays of birds and cetaceans. While many oscine birds use song complexity to assess male fitness, the role of complexity in humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) song is uncertain owing to population-wide conformity to one song pattern. Although songs change gradually each year, the eastern Australian population also completely replaces their song every few years in cultural ‘revolutions’. Revolutions involve learning large amounts of novel material introduced from the Western Australian population. We examined two measures of song structure, complexity and entropy, in the eastern Australian population over 13 consecutive years. These measures aimed to identify the role of complexity and information content in the vocal learning processes of humpback whales. Complexity was quantified at two hierarchical levels: the entire sequence of individual sound ‘units’ and the stereotyped arrangements of units which comprise a ‘theme’. Complexity increased as songs evolved over time but decreased when revolutions occurred. No correlation between complexity and entropy estimates suggests that changes to complexity may represent embellishment to the song which could allow males to stand out amidst population-wide conformity. The consistent reduction in complexity during song revolutions suggests a potential limit to the social learning capacity of novel material in humpback whales. Text Humpback Whale Megaptera novaeangliae PubMed Central (PMC) Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 285 1891 20182088 |
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Behaviour Allen, Jenny A. Garland, Ellen C. Dunlop, Rebecca A. Noad, Michael J. Cultural revolutions reduce complexity in the songs of humpback whales |
topic_facet |
Behaviour |
description |
Much evidence for non-human culture comes from vocally learned displays, such as the vocal dialects and song displays of birds and cetaceans. While many oscine birds use song complexity to assess male fitness, the role of complexity in humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) song is uncertain owing to population-wide conformity to one song pattern. Although songs change gradually each year, the eastern Australian population also completely replaces their song every few years in cultural ‘revolutions’. Revolutions involve learning large amounts of novel material introduced from the Western Australian population. We examined two measures of song structure, complexity and entropy, in the eastern Australian population over 13 consecutive years. These measures aimed to identify the role of complexity and information content in the vocal learning processes of humpback whales. Complexity was quantified at two hierarchical levels: the entire sequence of individual sound ‘units’ and the stereotyped arrangements of units which comprise a ‘theme’. Complexity increased as songs evolved over time but decreased when revolutions occurred. No correlation between complexity and entropy estimates suggests that changes to complexity may represent embellishment to the song which could allow males to stand out amidst population-wide conformity. The consistent reduction in complexity during song revolutions suggests a potential limit to the social learning capacity of novel material in humpback whales. |
format |
Text |
author |
Allen, Jenny A. Garland, Ellen C. Dunlop, Rebecca A. Noad, Michael J. |
author_facet |
Allen, Jenny A. Garland, Ellen C. Dunlop, Rebecca A. Noad, Michael J. |
author_sort |
Allen, Jenny A. |
title |
Cultural revolutions reduce complexity in the songs of humpback whales |
title_short |
Cultural revolutions reduce complexity in the songs of humpback whales |
title_full |
Cultural revolutions reduce complexity in the songs of humpback whales |
title_fullStr |
Cultural revolutions reduce complexity in the songs of humpback whales |
title_full_unstemmed |
Cultural revolutions reduce complexity in the songs of humpback whales |
title_sort |
cultural revolutions reduce complexity in the songs of humpback whales |
publisher |
The Royal Society |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6253384/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30464066 https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.2088 |
genre |
Humpback Whale Megaptera novaeangliae |
genre_facet |
Humpback Whale Megaptera novaeangliae |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6253384/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30464066 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.2088 |
op_rights |
© 2018 The Author(s) http://royalsocietypublishing.org/licence Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved. |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.2088 |
container_title |
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |
container_volume |
285 |
container_issue |
1891 |
container_start_page |
20182088 |
_version_ |
1766026376487370752 |