The Dolphin Institute - Dolphin Research Summaries

The cetacean group radiated widely during its evolution, and species currently occupy most of the available aquatic subzones. While many general adaptations for communication appear across the different species, there are also divergent trends reflecting specializations for a particular ecological substrate or for a particular form of social living. This chapter reviews these adaptations and discusses the forms of cetacean communication and their social and ecological correlates, so far as current information allows. The relation of cetacean communication to data and concepts on communication in other taxa is also considered when practicable.

The Communication systems of the cetaceans are analyzed as a set of component mechanisms and processes, stretching from the production of information transmission in the sea, and the use of these channels by different species or groups of species is reviewed and compared. Where inferences are possible, the functions of communication are discussed and the complexity of communication evaluated.

The study of cetacean communication has all too often focused on only limited aspects of the communication process or been pointed toward narrow issues. Rarely has the intermesh of species, society, ecology, and communication been considered (but see W. Evans and Bastian, 1969). It is hoped that the material in this chapter and its discussion will contribute toward a broader image of cetacean communication, its functions, and its determining variables.

Herman, L. M. and Tavolga, W. N. (1980). The communication systems of cetaceans. In L. M. Herman (Ed.), Cetacean behavior: Mechanisms and functions, 149-209. New York: Wiley Interscience.

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