Social networking in dolphins
Three-minute read
Complex networks make it possible to link up a high number of individuals. Short and efficient communication chains allow members of the network to access one another efficiently.
Dolphins form a high number of associations so that they can team up and work together to hunt, navigate and survive. These can be acquaintance level relationships, like our almost-forgotten Facebook friends. But dolphins make real friends too.
A seven-year study of bottlenose dolphins in Doubtful Sound in New Zealand made some interesting discoveries. Firstly, there were cliques within the community. Out of the 60 or so resident dolphins there were three distinct groups of five that were beyond tight.
Interestingly, dolphins with lots of friends aren’t keeping the network cohesive. Those deep relationships don’t function to keep the population connected. They just do that. The thing that keeps the network together is what the paper in question describes as a high level of redundancy in dolphin connections.
Dolphin societies can’t hang on particular individuals. The ocean is a dangerous place, and even a super-fit dolphin practicing the highest level of health and safety won’t live much longer than 60. If the whole community rests on the shoulders of one dolphin, it could fall apart in an instant.
Knowing all the neighbours, even just by face or name, is their solution to maintaining their social structure. Even if individuals die and leave gaps in the grid, the sheer volume of casual associations make sure the path between two individuals is still very short. Because of this, dolphin networks have high resilience.
The authors of the study compare dolphin social networking to both a power grid and human society. It’s complex and serves a real purpose. That resilience can keep the dolphins’ worlds turning even if a huge chunk of the population are wiped out by a natural disaster. Or a drive hunt.
More than a third of the New Zealand dolphins could have been removed from the system and it would still have been functional to keep everybody in touch and participating in society. The way dolphins connect so quickly also allows new animals to assimilate to a community without disruption.
Even though the popular dolphins aren’t the ones running the network, they’re still interesting. One annoying thing about dolphins is that they’re so smart and evolved that different populations around the world have their own rules. They behave differently because of their budding culture I discussed in the podcast.
In Doubtful sound, the social hubs were all adult females with the exception of one male. The scientists thought he must be a fairly old dolphin because he was very big and absolutely covered in scars. The stories he must have had.
Bottlenoses in Shark Bay, Australia, have worked out that they can forage for fish in rocky areas or among scratchy coral if they clamp a sea sponge between their teeth. It cushions their beak and lets them take advantage of a new food source. Shark Bay females are described by scientists as ‘cliquish’ and prefer to hang out with other dolphins that use sponges. Non-spongers are so last year.
All of this is only possible because dolphins have mega-charged brains that store and recall information just like humans do. Dolphin memory is remarkable, and they use their ability to get to know other dolphins as a way of keeping the whole community in touch. An animal that smart shouldn’t be made to perform for humans. It shouldn’t be removed from the wild, or flown around the globe to make some rich person even richer.
They belong out there, in their world. They need each other much, much more than we could ever need them.
