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Concept
Animal culture
Summary
Animal culture can be defined as the ability of non-human animals to learn and transmit behaviors through processes of social or cultural learning.
Culture is increasingly seen as a process, involving the social transmittance of behavior among peers and between generations. It can involve the transmission of novel behaviors or regional variations that are independent of genetic or ecological factors.
The existence of culture in non-humans has been a contentious subject, sometimes forcing researchers to rethink "what it is to be human".
The notion of culture in other animals dates back to Aristotle in classical antiquity, and more recently to Charles Darwin, but the association of other animals' actions with the actual word 'culture' originated with Japanese primatologists' discoveries of socially-transmitted food behaviours in the 1940s. Evidence for animal culture is often based on studies of
feeding behaviors, vocalizations, predator avoidance, mate selection, and migratory routes.
An important area of study for animal culture is vocal learning, the ability to make new sounds through imitation. Most species cannot learn to imitate sounds. Some can learn how to use innate vocalizations in new ways. Only a few species can learn new calls. The transmission of vocal repertoires, including some types of bird vocalization, can be viewed as social processes involving cultural transmission. Some evidence suggests that the ability to engage in vocal learning depends on the development of specialized brain circuitry, detected in humans, dolphins, bats and some birds. The lack of common ancestors suggests that the basis for vocal learning has evolved independently through evolutionary convergence.
Animal culture can be an important consideration in conservation management. As of 2020, culture and sociality were included in the aspects of the management framework of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS).
Official source
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