Dolphins may make friends during large feasts, a new study has found.
Just as humans are well known for gathering and socializing over a meal, scientists at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland found that bottlenose dolphins appear to do the same.
“The behaviors we observed were simply dolphins appearing in groups together,” Dr. David Fisher, who led the research, told Newsweek. “We then used these observations to create social networks, from which we then calculated three different measures.
“So, in short, yes, a classic aspect of dolphin biology is the fact they live in groups and so we aren’t bringing anything new there. But quantifying these three measures of individual social-network position and relating them to yearly and monthly variation in the environment is the novel aspect,” Fisher added.
The researchers have been observing this group of dolphins since 1989. In the study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, researchers said that dolphins off the east coast of Scotland were more sociable with each other during times when food was more available. They then took a look at just how the dolphins’ social behavior changed depending on food abundance, as well as changes in climate.
The dolphins appeared to engage socially with one another when salmon—their preferred prey in the area—was more readily available. The researchers theorized that the available food source reduced the dolphins’ competition with one another, allowing them more room to engage and socialize with one another.
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Scientists already know that dolphins are highly social animals with complex social structures, so it is not surprising that they seem keen to interact with each other—but learning how factors such as food influence this social behavior is.
Dr. Barbara Cheney, who also worked on the research, said in a press release on the findings that this has allowed them to relate environmental changes to their behavior.
“We know from previous work that dolphins form larger groups when food availability is higher, and that that same previous work showed that the North Atlantic Oscillation index does not affect group size in the current year, but at a two-year lag, via affects on prey availability,” Fisher said.
“So, this is the first time we’ve shown variation in individual social behavior for this population of dolphins, but finding that dolphins increase social interactions in months of higher food availability was somewhat expected,” Fisher added. “What was not expected was the increase in connections with distant parts of the network in years of lower food availability. It is really interesting to speculate as to why this is; we are currently thinking it is to do with dolphins ranging more widely across the year looking for food and so making more social contacts.”
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