Collaborative Research: Towards Understanding Collective Behavior in Highly IntelligentAanimals

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole MA

Investigators

Abstract

Acoustic communication can bring individuals together, coordinate activities, and maintain or end associations. However, the precise role played by sound in mediating both physical and physiological responses of members of their fluid groups has not been uncovered. This is in large part due to 1) an inability to simultaneously monitor individual vocalizations, the resulting movement of both focal and conspecific animals during highly dynamic behavior, and the physiology of the animals; and 2) the lack of a physics-based model of how the animals perceive sound in their environment. To date, scientists have tended to investigate how individual-specific signature whistles are used for identification, how signature whistles are used as contact calls, how acoustic features may indicate stress levels and how one dolphin may copy the signature whistle of another to initiate an interaction. However, how the animals perceive acoustic information during coordinated movement is still an open question. Further, the connection between the resulting behavior and emotional state of the animal is not well understood. Uncovering how the perception of acoustic information drives complex collective behavior requires a new framework to collect, analyze, and synthesize data from multiple dolphins at the same time. This includes a new understanding of how animals select, organize, and interpret acoustic information in a system where multiple signals can occur simultaneously and in a complex acoustic environment. To this end, this award will combine experimental measurements of sound and movement with physics-based models of acoustic perception and animal swimming mechanics to generate new knowledge about how context drives observed group movement patterns. Leveraging this approach, the investigators will create first of their kind maps between observed animal movement/acoustics and emotional state using physiological measurements collected in conjunction with controlled behavioral experiments. This effort will generate new knowledge about how coordinated behavior is influenced by environmental and behavioral context, how the physics of the acoustic environment influences communication, and how acoustic information is used to coordinate collective behavior. Intellectual merit of the award stems from the Principal Investigator’s efforts to: (1) Use a physics-based model of acoustic perception to generate a new understanding of collective dolphin behavior; (2) Enable the fundamental scientific understanding of how behavior and features from vocal cues can be used to identify physiological and emotional state of the animal; (3) Create dynamic movement profiles from individual animals to provide new knowledge about individual and group biomechanics during collective behavior; and (4) Investigate how a specialized acoustic signal, a whistle with learned individually distinctive features, is used to facilitate behavioral interactions. New knowledge derived from the research will impact the areas of physics-based modeling, biologging, communication, animal behavior, animal welfare, conservation, and acoustics. This award will generate new knowledge about how vocal communication, with influence from emotive state, facilitates collective behavior in bottlenose dolphins. An understanding of how information encoded in vocal cues is used to coordinate behavior will improve our fundamental understanding of dolphins. The resulting ability to estimate emotional state non-invasively from acoustic parameters of calls and observed movement will impact animal welfare and conservation in managed and wild settings. The team of researchers will also have impact through a multi-tiered education and outreach program, with a special emphasis on recruiting talented individuals from a variety of non-dominant fields in STEM. K-12 education and public outreach opportunities in the greater Chicagoland area will leverage existing resources at Brookfield. This collaboration will create opportunities to engage and share new knowledge generated by the project about these important biological systems with the local community, and aid in the conservation and management of cetaceans in general. At the University of Michigan, this novel engineering project for the study of an engaging biological system will be used to recruit students from a diverse and underrepresented pool of students outside of the traditional track. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.