Cognition, culture, … and communication?

« previous post | next post »

An interesting recent review article (Wooster et al., "Animal cognition and culture mediate predator–prey interactions", Trends in Ecology & Evolution 2024) argues for bridging the academic silos of "predator-prey ecology" and "animal cognition and culture":

Abstract: Predator–prey ecology and the study of animal cognition and culture have emerged as independent disciplines. Research combining these disciplines suggests that both animal cognition and culture can shape the outcomes of predator–prey interactions and their influence on ecosystems. We review the growing body of work that weaves animal cognition or culture into predator–prey ecology, and argue that both cognition and culture are significant but poorly understood mechanisms mediating how predators structure ecosystems. We present a framework exploring how previous experiences with the predation process creates feedback loops that alter the predation sequence. Cognitive and cultural predator–prey ecology offers ecologists new lenses through which to understand species interactions, their ecological consequences, and novel methods to conserve wildlife in a changing world.

Oddly, there's nothing in the article about communication, which would seem to be a relevant aspect of "culture", and relevant to studies of "cognition" as well.

The article's glossary does include a definition of "Animal culture" as "behavioural traditions that are socially learned and transmitted within and between generations", but there's nothing in the article about how that transmission happens, or how evidence about the process is relevant to the other issues under discussion.

And there's a long tradition of relevant research — for example, a Google Scholar search for {animal alarm calls} turns up about 362,000 results, 17,700 of which are more than 50 years old.  Yet the text of the cited article is innocent of words such as communication and alarm, and its bibliography also seems to lack any relevant references.

That's all I have time for this morning, but later on I'll summarize some of the relevant work. If you're interested, you can find an excellent introductory discussion in Dorothy Cheney and Robert Seyfarth, "How Monkeys See the World: Inside the Mind of Another Species", 1990.



2 Comments »

  1. Benjamin E. Orsatti said,

    November 11, 2024 @ 3:10 pm

    I noticed the lack of "communication" thing too. Which raises the question of how it can be possible to attribute advances in the predator/prey "arms race" to cognition over simple natural selection. In other words, maybe the burrowing betongs that _didn't_ dig tunnels became kitty chow and the ones that _did_ lived to breed with nary a reflective contemplation involved in the process.

  2. Mark Liberman said,

    November 11, 2024 @ 4:33 pm

    @Benjamin E. Orsatti: "Which raises the question of how it can be possible to attribute advances in the predator/prey "arms race" to cognition over simple natural selection."

    Genetic variation and selection can certainly determine group behavior. But the cited paper aims to rule that out by looking at short-term responses to invasive species, and other cases where the time course can make it clear that individual and/or cultural learning has taken place.

    And the alarm-call literature (among other related topics) has studied in detail how individual new-born animals are "enculturated" to learn the communicative and behavioral responses appropriate in their environment; and also how groups of animals adapt their communicative and behavioral responses to the predators and prey available in a new environment.

    The research methods involved are straightforwardly based on analysis of intra-group and cross-special communication.

RSS feed for comments on this post · TrackBack URI

Leave a Comment