Synchrony Between a Mother-Calf Pair of Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops truncatus)

(Statement of Responsibility) by Wendi Fellner(Thesis) Thesis (B.A.) -- New College of Florida, 2000(Electronic Access) RESTRICTED TO NCF STUDENTS, STAFF, FACULTY, AND ON-CAMPUS USE(Bibliography) Includes bibliographical references.(Source of Description) This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.(Local) Faculty Sponsor: Bauer, Gordo

Cognitive Research with Dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) at Disney’s The Seas: A Program for Enrichment, Science, Education, and Conservation

The dolphins at Disney contribute to a cognitive research program. This program has been very successful in four main areas: enrichment, science, education, and conservation. Dolphins are large brained,long-lived mammals with extended developmental periods, complex social lives, a large variety of foraging techniques, and intricate vocal emissions; consequently, they need to engage incognitive tasks, and they respond well to them. Our tasks have been designed for scientifically valid data collection focused mostly on questions relating to echoic object recognition, communication, and imitation/synchrony. The results have been published in peer-reviewed research journals and are summarized here. Data collection occurs in front of the public and appears to create a connection between the visitors and the dolphins. Through this program the dolphins under Disney’s care have been able to promote conservation via our publications, public education, the testing of new technologies, staff (veterinary, research, husbandry) support at in situ research sites, and direct financial contributions. The program may be a useful example for other public facilities housing dolphins

Cognitive Research with Dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) at Disney’s The Seas: A Program for Enrichment, Science, Education, and Conservation

The dolphins at Disney contribute to a cognitive research program. This program has been very successful in four main areas: enrichment, science, education, and conservation. Dolphins are large brained,long-lived mammals with extended developmental periods, complex social lives, a large variety of foraging techniques, and intricate vocal emissions; consequently, they need to engage incognitive tasks, and they respond well to them. Our tasks have been designed for scientifically valid data collection focused mostly on questions relating to echoic object recognition, communication, and imitation/synchrony. The results have been published in peer-reviewed research journals and are summarized here. Data collection occurs in front of the public and appears to create a connection between the visitors and the dolphins. Through this program the dolphins under Disney’s care have been able to promote conservation via our publications, public education, the testing of new technologies, staff (veterinary, research, husbandry) support at in situ research sites, and direct financial contributions. The program may be a useful example for other public facilities housing dolphins

Vocal copying of individually distinctive signature whistles in bottlenose dolphins

Vocal learning is relatively common in birds but less so in mammals. Sexual selection and individual or group recognition have been identified as major forces in its evolution. While important in the development of vocal displays, vocal learning also allows signal copying in social interactions. Such copying can function in addressing or labelling selected conspecifics. Most examples of addressing in non-humans come from bird song, where matching occurs in an aggressive context. However, in other animals, addressing with learned signals is very much an affiliative signal. We studied the function of vocal copying in a mammal that shows vocal learning as well as complex cognitive and social behaviour, the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus). Copying occurred almost exclusively between close associates such as mother–calf pairs and male alliances during separation and was not followed by aggression. All copies were clearly recognizable as such because copiers consistently modified some acoustic parameters of a signal when copying it. We found no evidence for the use of copying in aggression or deception. This use of vocal copying is similar to its use in human language, where the maintenance of social bonds appears to be more important than the immediate defence of resources

Underwater Visual Acuity of Florida Manatees (Trichechus manatus latirostris)

In Experiment 1 underwater visual acuity was assessed in two Florida manatees, Trichechus manatus Latirostris , using grating stimuli in three conditions: Vertical gratings presented in freshwater, vertical gratings in saltwater, and horizontal gratings in saltwater. All stimuli were tested in a free-swimming format from a minimum distance of one meter. Substantial differences were found between the two subjects. One subject’s minimum angles of resolution (MAR) were 56 min for vertical stimuli in freshwater, 38 min for vertical stimuli in saltwater, and 24 min for horizontal grating stimuli in saltwater. When only trials under brightest light conditions were analyzed, MARs improved for vertical stimuli to 24 min in freshwater and 21 min in saltwater. No improvement was found for horizontal stimuli with brighter light conditions. The MARs of the second subject measured over a degree for all test conditions. In Experiment 2 only the first subject was tested from a closer viewing distance. He showed no improvement when allowed to approach targets to within 30 cm. The limited resolution of both subjects and absence of increased acuity at closer distances in one suggests that manatees use vision for intermediate or longer distance inspection of large objects. The disparity in visual resolution between subjects has possible implications for variability in acuity within the species

Information‑seeking across auditory scenes by an echolocating dolphin

Published online: 26 August 2022Dolphins gain information through echolocation, a publicly accessible sensory system in which dolphins produce clicks and process returning echoes, thereby both investigating and contributing to auditory scenes. How their knowledge of these scenes contributes to their echoic information-seeking is unclear. Here, we investigate their top–down cognitive processes in an echoic matching-to-sample task in which targets and auditory scenes vary in their decipherability and shift from being completely unfamiliar to familiar. A blind-folded adult male dolphin investigated a target sample positioned in front of a hydrophone to allow recording of clicks, a measure of information-seeking and effort; the dolphin received fish for choosing an object identical to the sample from 3 alternatives. We presented 20 three-object sets, unfamiliar in the first five 18-trial sessions with each set. Performance accuracy and click counts varied widely across sets. Click counts of the four lowestperformance- accuracy/low-discriminability sets (X = 41%) and the four highest-performance-accuracy/high-discriminability sets (X = 91%) were similar at the first sessions’ starts and then decreased for both kinds of scenes, although the decrease was substantially greater for low-discriminability sets. In four challenging-but-doable sets, number of clicks remained relatively steady across the 5 sessions. Reduced echoic effort with low-discriminability sets was not due to overall motivation: the differential relationship between click number and object-set discriminability was maintained when difficult and easy trials were interleaved and when objects from originally difficult scenes were grouped with more discriminable objects. These data suggest that dolphins calibrate their echoic information-seeking effort based on their knowledge and expectations of auditory scenes.This work was funded by Walt Disney World ® Resorts and New College of Florida