Abstract
In cetaceans’ communities, interactions between individuals of different species are often observed in the wild. Yet, due to methodological and technical challenges very little is known about the mediation of these interactions and their effect on cetaceans’ behavior. Killer whales (Orcinus orca) are a highly vocal species and can be both food competitors and potential predators of many other cetaceans. Thus, the interception of their vocalizations by unintended cetacean receivers may be particularly important in mediating interspecific interactions. To address this hypothesis, we conducted playbacks of killer whale vocalizations recorded during herring-feeding activity to free-ranging long-finned pilot whales (Globicephala melas). Using a multi-sensor tag, we were able to track the whales and to monitor changes of their movements and social behavior in response to the playbacks. We demonstrated that the playback of killer whale sounds to pilot whales induced a clear increase in group size and a strong attraction of the animals towards the sound source. These findings provide the first experimental evidence that the interception of heterospecific vocalizations can mediate interactions between different cetacean species in previously unrecognized ways.
Highlights
The last decade has seen a growing recognition of the importance of individual traits and behavior in the understanding of biological communities’ structure, moving away from describing ecological networks based on species-averaged data to start exploring patterns based on individuals [1,2,3]
As killer whales are a highly vocal species [15,16,17], we hypothesized that the interception of their vocalizations by other cetaceans is instrumental in mediating interspecific interactions
We showed that killer whale sounds recorded during herringfeeding activity clearly attracted pilot whales which provide the first experimental evidence of cetaceans’ attraction towards the vocalizations of another cetacean species
Summary
The last decade has seen a growing recognition of the importance of individual traits and behavior in the understanding of biological communities’ structure, moving away from describing ecological networks based on species-averaged data to start exploring patterns based on individuals [1,2,3]. Playback of natural sounds is the most relevant method to study the role of vocalizations in the interactions between animals [6]. This approach has been rarely attempted in wild cetaceans due mainly to the difficulty to reliably monitor the behavioral responses of these animals at sea [7,8,9,10,11,12,13]. As killer whales are a highly vocal species [15,16,17], we hypothesized that the interception of their vocalizations by other cetaceans is instrumental in mediating interspecific interactions
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