ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2019
Causes and consequences of female centrality in cetacean societies.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 59 citations in OpenAlex.
- Rethinking solitude: 5 decades of data reveal social tolerance in a traditionally solitary felid.Journal of mammalogy · 2026Article
- Menopause Averted a Midlife Energetic Crisis With Help From Older Dependent Children and Parents: A Simulation Study.American journal of biological anthropology · 2026Article
- Seasonal contact and migration structure mass epidemics and inform outbreak preparedness in a vulnerable marine mammal.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Ecology and conservation of socially learned foraging tactics in odontocetes.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Convergent evolution in high-altitude and marine mammals: Molecular adaptations to pulmonary fibrosis and hypoxia.Zoological research · 2024Article
- Social and genetic connectivity despite ecological variation in a killer whale network.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Hunter-Gatherer children's close-proximity networks: Similarities and differences with cooperative and communal breeding systems.Evolutionary human sciences · 2024Article
- Evolution, diversification and function of the maternal-infant dyad in mammalian feeding.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Bottlenose dolphin mothers modify signature whistles in the presence of their own calves.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Historical Mitogenomic Diversity and Population Structuring of Southern Hemisphere Fin Whales.Genes · 2023Article
- Flexibility in the social structure of male chimpanzees (Royal Society open science · 2022Article
- Humpback whale adult females and calves balance acoustic contact with vocal crypsis during periods of increased separation.Ecology and evolution · 2022Article
- Kin relationships in cultural species of the marine realm: case study of a matrilineal social group of sperm whales off Mauritius island, Indian Ocean.Royal Society open science · 2021Article
- Group structure and kinship in beluga whale societies.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Prolonged maternal investment in northern bottlenose whales alters our understanding of beaked whale reproductive life history.PloS one · 2020Article
- The evolution of female-biased kinship in humans and other mammals.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019Article
- Social networks reveal sex- and age-patterned social structure in Butler's gartersnakes (Behavioral ecology : official journal of the International Society for Behavioral EcologyArticle
- Lack of intergenerational reproductive conflict, rather than lack of inclusive fitness benefits, explains absence of post-reproductive lifespan in long-finned pilot whales.Behavioral ecology : official journal of the International Society for Behavioral EcologyArticle
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 5 institutions in 6 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Cetaceans are fully aquatic predatory mammals that have successfully colonized virtually all marine habitats. Their adaptation to these habitats, so radically different from those of their terrestrial ancestors, can give us comparative insights into the evolution of female roles and kinship in mammalian societies. We provide a review of the diversity of such roles across the Cetacea, which are unified by some key and apparently invariable life-history features. Mothers are uniparous, while paternal care is completely absent as far as we currently know. Maternal input is extensive, lasting months to many years. Hence, female reproductive rates are low, every cetacean calf is a significant investment, and offspring care is central to female fitness. Here strategies diverge, especially between toothed and baleen whales, in terms of mother-calf association and related social structures, which range from ephemeral grouping patterns to stable, multi-level, societies in which social groups are strongly organized around female kinship. Some species exhibit social and/or spatial philopatry in both sexes, a rare phenomenon in vertebrates. Communal care can be vital, especially among deep-diving species, and can be supported by female kinship. Female-based sociality, in its diverse forms, is therefore a prevailing feature of cetacean societies. Beyond the key role in offspring survival, it provides the substrate for significant vertical and horizontal cultural transmission, as well as the only definitive non-human examples of menopause. This article is part of the theme issue 'The evolution of female-biased kinship in humans and other mammals'.
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