Researchers Awarded for Identifying Possible Language-Like Communication in Dolphins
Researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and partner institutions, including the Brookfield Zoo Chicago’s Sarasota Dolphin Research Program (SDRP), are the winners of the inaugural Coller Dolittle Challenge for their work in identifying possible language-like communication in dolphins.
The Jeremy Coller Foundation and Tel Aviv University made the announcement of the $100,000 prize during a virtual event with four shortlisted teams of researchers from the USA, Germany, France, and Israel showcasing their remarkable discoveries in communication with monkeys, nightingales, and cuttlefish. All four finalists used cutting-edge technology, science, and ingenuity to decipher, interface and mimic non-human organism communication.
Biologist Laela Sayigh led the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution team, including WHOI’s Peter Tyack. Vincent Janik from the University of St. Andrews, Frants Jensen from Aarhus University, Katie McHugh, and Randall Wells from the Brookfield Zoo Chicago’s SDRP were also a part of the research science teams, working with a resident bottlenose dolphin community in Sarasota, Florida. Their study focused on non-signature whistles—which comprise approximately 50% of whistles produced by Sarasota dolphins. Non-signature whistles differ from the more widely-studied signature whistles—which are name-like vocalizations.
The winning study identified distinct non-signature whistle types used by multiple dolphins for communication. Using playback experiments performed under completely natural conditions in the wild, the team elicited avoidance responses for one non-signature whistle, suggesting an alarm function. A second non-signature whistle was found to correlate to a query function, produced in response to an unexpected or unfamiliar situation.
Sayigh’s team recorded known individual dolphins with non-invasive suction-cup hydrophones placed on the animals during unique catch-and-release health assessments, as well as with digital acoustic tags.