Sensory Perception in Cetaceans: Part I—Current Knowledge about Dolphin Senses As a Representative Species

Kremers, Dorothee; Célérier, Aurélie; Schaal, Benoı̂st; Campagna, Sylvie; Trabalon, Marie; Böye, Martin; Hausberger, Martine; Lemasson, Alban

doi:10.3389/fevo.2016.00049

Cited by 22 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 181 publications

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“…Furthermore, chemoreceptive structures common in terrestrial mammals may be modified, displaced, reduced, or absent in modern cetaceans due to evolutionary adaptation to life in an aquatic environment (Kremers et al . ). Genetic evidence indicates that all cetaceans lack functional receptors for sweet, bitter, and umami flavors (Kishida et al .…”

Section: Brief Descriptions Of Cetacean Sensory Systems As Related Tomentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Overall, dolphins have good visual resolution, acuity, brightness and contrast sensitivity, motion detection, rudimentary color sensitivity, and distance perception that serves important biological functions, including prey detection (Herman , Kremers et al . ) and likely prey discrimination. In air, dolphins likely use their accurate vision to assist with air born prey capture ( e.g ., Torres and Read ), while in water the visual sensitivity to depth perception and motion increases prey detection, discrimination, and capture at close range, where the utility of the forward‐focused biosonar field deteriorates (Watkins and Wartzok , Mobley and Helweg ).…”

Section: Brief Descriptions Of Cetacean Sensory Systems As Related Tomentioning

confidence: 99%

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A sense of scale: Foraging cetaceans' use of scale‐dependent multimodal sensory systems

Torres

2017

Marine Mammal Science

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Research on cetacean foraging ecology is central to our understanding of their spatial and behavioral ecology. Yet, functional mechanisms by which cetaceans detect prey across different scales remain unclear. Here, I postulate that cetaceans utilize a scaledependent, multimodal sensory system to assess and increase prey encounters. I review the literature on cetacean sensory systems related to foraging ecology, and hypothesize the effective scales of each sensory modality to inform foraging opportunities. Next, I build two "scale-of-senses" schematics for the general groups of dolphins and baleen whales. These schematics illustrate the hypothetical interchange of sensory modalities used to locate and discriminate prey at spatial scales ranging from 0 m to 1,000 km: (1) vision, (2) audition (sound production and sound reception), (3) chemoreception, (4) magnetoreception, and somatosensory perception of (5) prey, or (6) oceanographic stimuli. The schematics illustrate how a cetacean may integrate sensory modalities to form an adaptive foraging landscape as a function of distance to prey. The scale-of-senses schematic is flexible, allowing for case-specific application and enhancement with improved cetacean sensory data. The framework serves to improve our understanding of functional cetacean foraging ecology, and to develop new hypotheses, methods, and results regarding how cetaceans forage at multiple scales.

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Section: Brief Descriptions Of Cetacean Sensory Systems As Related Tomentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Brief Descriptions Of Cetacean Sensory Systems As Related Tomentioning

confidence: 99%

A sense of scale: Foraging cetaceans' use of scale‐dependent multimodal sensory systems

Torres

2017

Marine Mammal Science

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“…Other mechanisms, such as the intrinsic drumming muscles, are (most likely) a characteristic of the entire order Batrachoidiformes (toadfishes). Besides acoustic and visual signals, fish can also communicate via chemical (pheromones), electric organ discharge (see Glossary) and vibrational (lateral line) signals, channels that are either not present or unimportant (pheromones) in cetaceans (Kremers et al, 2016). However, cetaceans, especially toothed whales, live in permanent and highly complex social systems.…”

Section: Aquatic Vertebratesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Acoustic communication in terrestrial and aquatic vertebrates

Ladich

Winkler

2017

Journal of Experimental Biology

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Sound propagates much faster and over larger distances in water than in air, mainly because of differences in the density of these media. This raises the question of whether terrestrial (land mammals, birds) and (semi-)aquatic animals (frogs, fishes, cetaceans) differ fundamentally in the way they communicate acoustically. Terrestrial vertebrates primarily produce sounds by vibrating vocal tissue (folds) directly in an airflow. This mechanism has been modified in frogs and cetaceans, whereas fishes generate sounds in quite different ways mainly by utilizing the swimbladder or pectoral fins. On land, vertebrates pick up sounds with light tympana, whereas other mechanisms have had to evolve underwater. Furthermore, fishes differ from all other vertebrates by not having an inner ear end organ devoted exclusively to hearing. Comparing acoustic communication within and between aquatic and terrestrial vertebrates reveals that there is no 'aquatic way' of sound communication, as compared with a more uniform terrestrial one. Birds and mammals display rich acoustic communication behaviour, which reflects their highly developed cognitive and social capabilities. In contrast, acoustic signaling seems to be the exception in fishes, and is obviously limited to short distances and to substrate-breeding species, whereas all cetaceans communicate acoustically and, because of their predominantly pelagic lifestyle, exploit the benefits of sound propagation in a dense, obstacle-free medium that provides fast and almost lossless signal transmission.

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“…However, further studies are needed to investigate whether and to which extend dolphins actually use chemical cues in different contexts. Proposition on this issue can be found in Kremers et al (2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In dolphins, few studies have been performed compared to other sensory modalities (see Kremers et al, 2016), and their results are contradictory.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensory Perception in Cetaceans: Part II—Promising Experimental Approaches to Study Chemoreception in Dolphins

et al. 2016

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Chemosensory perception in cetaceans remains an intriguing issue as morphological, neuroanatomical and genetic studies draw unclear conclusions, while behavioral data suggest that dolphins may use it for food selection or socio-sexual interactions. Experimental approaches have been scarce due to the practical difficulties of testing chemoreception in wild dolphins. Go/no-go tasks are one elegant way to investigate discrimination abilities; however, they require to train the animals, thus preventing spontaneous responses and hence the expression of preferences. Here, we aimed at testing potential spontaneous responses to chemical stimuli and developed novel procedures. First, we conducted a study to test whether captive dolphins respond to a biologically relevant smell. Therefore, we placed dead fish within an opaque barrel at the border of the pool and counted the number of respirations at proximity as an indicator of investigation. The same dead fishes were presented several times during experiments lasting three consecutive days. From the second day on (i.e., when the odor composition changed), dolphins breathed more often close to the fish-smelling barrel than close to the visually identical but empty control barrel. Second, we conducted a study to test whether dolphins are able to discriminate food flavors. Captive dolphins are commonly provided with ice cubes as a source of enrichment. We took this opportunity to provide ice cubes with different flavors and to compare the reaction to these different flavors as a measure of discrimination. Hence, we used the latency of return to the ice cube begging spot as a measure of discrimination from the previous ice cube flavor. Thus, our method used a non-invasive and easily replicable technique based on the spontaneous begging responses of dolphins toward more or less attractive items bearing biological relevance. The procedures used enabled us to show that dolphins may discriminate odors and flavors respectively.

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Sensory Perception in Cetaceans: Part I—Current Knowledge about Dolphin Senses As a Representative Species

Cited by 22 publications

References 181 publications

A sense of scale: Foraging cetaceans' use of scale‐dependent multimodal sensory systems

A sense of scale: Foraging cetaceans' use of scale‐dependent multimodal sensory systems

Acoustic communication in terrestrial and aquatic vertebrates

Sensory Perception in Cetaceans: Part II—Promising Experimental Approaches to Study Chemoreception in Dolphins

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