Abstract:

Young killer whales develop a repertoire of stereotyped calls that biologists refer to as a dialect.  Dialects are unusual among mammals, known only from cetaceans and a few primates (yep, that’s you).  My lab is measuring dialect development in the killer whale under controlled conditions to understand how the dialect is acquired and how it functions in their social system.  Based on what we’ve learned to date, the stages of dialect acquisition are so reminiscent of human language development that it is hard not to draw parallels.  At birth, whales produce unstereotyped, uncontrolled screams, like those of a baby.  Within the first few months, they begin to produce elements of the adult repertoire, but the results are highly variable, comparable to the babbling of toddlers.  As they reach the end of their first year, they produce identifiable calls from the mother’s repertoire alone, even if there are other calls in their environment.  I’ll describe each of these steps and talk about the effort to understand how the dialect changes as whales begin to socialize with whales other than their mother.  We think the repertoire changes, just as human teenagers shape their language to conform with their friends.  When they become adults, a learning ‘window’ appears to close, making learning of new calls slow or impossible.  If we can understand the adaptive function of these stages, maybe we’ll be closer to understanding the evolution of human language.   

She is a participant on the NOAA Ocean Acoustics Program Criteria Panel, which is developing noise exposure standards for marine mammals, and has served on advisory panels for the U.S. Navy, Marine Mammal Commission, National Marine Fisheries Service, and International Union for the Conservation of Nature. 

AGENDA: