Observing and Quantifying Cetacean Behavior in the Wild: Current Problems, Limitations, and Future Directions
Behavioral research and analysis is prone to both error and bias, particularly in the early stages of a discipline, in part because it is widely (and erroneously) believed that “behavior” is rather simple and can be easily described or quantified. However
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Observing and Quantifying Cetacean Behavior in the Wild: Current Problems, Limitations, and Future Directions Janet Mann and Bernd Würsig
A subgroup of dusky dolphins “boisterously” leaping. Without behavioral context, it is difficult to know whether these leaping animals represent a mating group, with often several males chasing a female in probable estrus; or whether it is a feeding group, with dolphins leaping to rapidly and simultaneously access a school or shoal of small fish just below the surface. (Off Kaikoura, New Zealand, summer 2011– 2012, by Anke Kügler)
J. Mann (*) Reiss Science Building, Department of Biology, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20057, USA e-mail: [email protected] B. Würsig Ocean and Coastal Sciences Building, Department of Marine Biology, Texas A&M University, 200 Seawolf Pkwy., Galveston, TX 77553, USA J. Yamagiwa and L. Karczmarski (eds.), Primates and Cetaceans: Field Research and Conservation of Complex Mammalian Societies, Primatology Monographs, DOI 10.1007/978-4-431-54523-1_17, © Springer Japan 2014
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J. Mann and B. Würsig
Abstract Behavioral research and analysis is prone to both error and bias, particularly in the early stages of a discipline, in part because it is widely (and erroneously) believed that “behavior” is rather simple and can be easily described or quantified. However, since the 1970s for terrestrial animals, and since the late 1990s for marine mammals, systematic protocols of data gathering and ever more sophisticated modeling and multivariate statistical techniques have been described, largely to reduce problems of bias and pseudoreplication. With modern observational protocols, often enhanced by sophisticated multivariable data-gathering tools, the future for more accurate assessments, and therefore interpretations, of the sophisticated social behaviors of wild cetaceans seems assured. Keywords Ad libitum • Animal behavior • Behavioral sampling • Data tags • Events • Fission–fusion • Focal animal following • Point sampling • Quantitative methods • Sampling errors • Scan sampling • States
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Introduction
Mapping cetacean behavior is critical to evolutionary approaches and conservation management. How can we understand the basic biology, life history, and evolution of a species, and address critical conservation questions, without at least some rudimentary appreciation of their ranging, foraging, social, and parental behavior? Although many people are fascinated with animal behavior, evident by the number and popularity of nature shows, a common misconception of amateur and even senior scientists is the assumption that studying behavior is easy. The premise is that we are all observers of behavior, at least within our own species, so compared to gene sequencing, neuroscience, or biochemistry, mere “behavior” is something with which we are intimately familiar, regardless of training. Historically, such overconfidence plagued field studies of animal behavior until the 1970s, and descriptive studies often overinterpreted behaviors that hap
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