Dolphin communication: past, present and future research directions

The idea that dolphins communicate with a complex form of language has been entrenched in our culture since the days of the TV show “Flipper.” I will discuss how this idea originated, and its continuing impact, bygiving a brief history of the study of dolphin communication. I will then discuss our current state of knowledge, including examples of recent research, focusing particularly on structure and function of individually distinctive signature whistles and less well-understood non-signature whistles. I will describe current avenues of research, including playback experiments, tag studies, and a project usingacoustic monitoring to develop an alert system for dolphin massstranding events. I will also discuss future directions including the use of artificial intelligence to detect and classify whistles.

Speaker: Laela Sayigh, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Attend in person or online (register at weblink)

Editor's note: At the time our listing was created, MBARI's website shows "rescheduled" as part of the title of this lecture.  We can't tell if this was rescheduled from another date, or if it is to be rescheduled.