While it may incorporate visual and perceptive components, communication is primarily an auditory exchange between two organisms. Most species use a broad spectrum of words, sounds, grunts, and clicks used to communicate an even wider array of thoughts and emotions. Certain species, humans among them, can learn to mimic the communicative noises emitted by other species, an ability known as vocal learning. Humans, for example, may alter their tone, pitch, and word selection if around unfamiliar or younger members of a community; this is not a difficult phenomenon to observe. In marine organisms, effective research can be more difficult.
Orca whales have been shown to have the ability to pick up on vocal cues from animals of different species, including dolphins.
Last week, a study conducted by Whitney Musser, a graduate student at the University of San Diego and Dr. Ann Bowles, senior researcher at Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute, found that orcas (more commonly known as killer whales) also have the capacity for cross species vocal learning. When paired with dolphins for extended periods of time, the researchers found that the orcas actually altered the structure and pitch of their pulsed calls to match their new companions! Additionally, it was noted that the frequency of the calls was not consistent for each orca; specificity in communication appeared to be established on a pod-by-pod basis.
“There’s been an idea for a long time that killer whales learn their dialect, but it isn’t enough to say they all have different dialects so therefore they learn,” Bowles noted. “There needs to be some experimental proof so you can say how well they learn and what context promotes learning.” Moreover, Bowles’ research comes at a time when habitat destruction of marine life is on the rise. If social units and pods are bound together largely by their unique methods of communication, adaptability in communication might improve a pod’s chance of survival. And this doesn’t just apply to killer whales—all kinds of marine life face the same manner of habitat destruction and contamination, and in such times of environmental crisis, communication becomes paramount. “It’s important to understand how they acquire [their vocalization patterns], and lifelong, to what degree they can change it, because there are a number of different [cetacean] populations on the decline right now,” according to Bowles. “And where killer whales go, we can expect other small whale species to go — it’s a broader question.” For now, the orca is adapting in ways not widely regarded as possible; perhaps other species have similar communicative versatility, waiting to be discovered.
Sources:
Acoustical Society of America, Killer whales learn to communicate like dolphins (7 Oct 2014). Available at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141007111055.htm (13 Oct 2014).