So I'm a couple of months late in sharing this with you, but better late than never. Kathryn, who was a
Beam Reach student in the Spring of 2010, and then stayed on as a summer intern for
The Whale Museum, presented her preliminary research findings at the
American Cetacean Society's conference in November in Monterey. She is doing this research as part of her senior thesis at the
College of the Atlantic. It was great to have her helping us at the light house this past summer and awesome to see her making progress on her data. She is interested in testing what are called Morton's motivational rules in the calls of killer whales. The basic notion is that when individuals are near each other, they need to be able to convey their intent as friend or foe in a very clear and unambiguous way. This helps to avoid personal injury (if the other is a foe), or worse. The theory goes that when individuals are aggressive they use low pitched sounds that are harsh in tone, while if they are friendly or appeasing they use high pitched tonal sounds. This of course only applies to calls given in close quarters. This has been tested in a number of species with mixed results, but does seem to hold for some species. In fact as humans we are often subconsciously aware of these 'rules' in our species and in others. Think of the sound an aggressive dog makes (low pitched growl) versus the submissive, appeasing sound they make when scared or hurt (high pitched whine). These canine sounds follow Morton's rules and can tell you, as a human, right away whether the dog is a threat to your own personal safety.
But back to whales. Kathryn is finding some interesting results, some of which support Morton's rules and some of which don't (Awe come on, you didn't think that these complex animals would fit nicely into some neat set of rules we made up. That is one of the things that makes them so fascinating after all). If you want to read some of the details you can find them in her poster below (We've made the poster large so that hopefully you can read the fine print. You may also have to zoom in on your web browser). Kathryn is currently finishing up her analyses and writing up her thesis. We'll try to update when that process is finished.
