In Sync or Vocal? How Bottlenose Dolphins Coordinate in a Cooperative Task

Abstract

Cooperation experiments have long been used to explore the cognition underlying animals' coordination towards a shared goal. While the ability to understand the need for a partner has been demonstrated in a number of species, far fewer studies have explored the behavioral strategies animals use to coordinate their behavior in such tasks. Here, we investigate the strategies two dolphin dyads used to coordinate their behavior during a cooperative button-pressing task that required precise behavioral synchronization. Both dyads were more likely to succeed if they used whistles prior to pressing their buttons, but the results showed that they adopted different strategies. Specifically, one dyad favored physical synchrony, waiting nearby for their partner and swimming together to approach the buttons. The other dyad was much more vocal, and more likely to swim independently before coordinating at the buttons. Only for this second dyad did increased whistling lead to more success. Our results suggest that bottlenose dolphins have the behavioral flexibility to employ either vocal signals or physical synchrony to coordinate their cooperative efforts.