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Social laterality in wild beluga whale infants: comparisons between locations, escort conditions, and ages

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Abstract

One of the important aspects of the animal social behavior is the laterality in perception of conspecifics. Spatial laterality in adult–infant interactions is usually revealed in primates as a cradling/holding bias in adults or nipple preference in infants. The origin and function of such biases, however, remain unclear. Here, we investigated spatial laterality in adult–infant pairs in beluga whales from two geographically distinct locations using aerial photography analysis. In addition, behavioral observations on individually identified mother–infant pairs at a belugas’ breeding aggregation were conducted to assess the infants’ age influence on the lateralization in pairs. A general preference of the calves to position themselves to the right of the accompanied adult was found. We failed to reveal any influence of geographical location, presence or relative position of other individuals escorting the adult–infant pair, and position of the calf along the body of the escorting adult. A significant right-sided bias in infants’ position was present in all age classes, but 2–6 months-old belugas were found to be stronger lateralized, than the newborns and 7–18 months-old calves. That may reflect age-related changes in infants’ motor and social behavior. We argue that the revealed laterality is associated with the calves’ left eye–right hemisphere preference in perceiving social stimuli, and we then discuss its possible advantages. Pronounced adult–infant spatial laterality in condition (unlike that seen in primates) when forelimbs do not directly determine subjects’ relative positioning suggests sensory lateralization alone to be the determining factor.

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Acknowledgments

We wish to thank the members of Marine Mammals Behaviour and Bioacoustics Laboratory at the P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, especially Vera Krasnova, Anton Chernetsky Vladimir Baranov, Alexander Bratanov, and Vsevolod Bel’kovich, as well as Bettina van Elk, and Alexandra Zheludkova for their organizational assistance and valuable help in the field. This work was supported by the Federal Grant-in-Aid Program "Human Capital for Science and Education in Innovative Russia" (Governmental Contract No. P2379). Aerial surveys were conducted as a part of scientific projects of Utrish Dolphinarium, Ltd, White whale Programme IPEE RAS (financing by Russian Geographical Society) and "Current status of the Sakhalin-Amur beluga aggregation (Okhotsk Sea, Russia): sustainability assessment" project (financing by Utrish Dolphinarium, Ltd, Ocean Park Corporation, Hong Kong; Georgia Aquarium Inc., USA; SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment, USA; Mystic Aquarium and Institute for Exploration, USA; Kamogawa Sea World, Japan). We thank Lisa Veikher for final English style check.

Ethical statement

This study does not include any study of human subjects or non-human primates, thus does not need any specific adherence to the Declaration of Helsinki or Weatherall report. As for the work with other subjects, this work, which only implies distant observations on animals, did not require any permission according to local rules and laws in Russia.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Vertebrate Zoology, Faculty of Biology and Soil Sciences, Saint Petersburg State University, Universitetskaya nab., 7/9, St. Petersburg, 199034, Russia

    Karina Karenina, Andrey Giljov & Yegor Malashichev

  2. White Whale Program of Permanent expedition of Russian Academy of Science studying Red Book animals and other focus species of Russia of A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninskiy pr, 33, 119071, Moscow, Russia

    Dmitry Glazov

  3. Department of Embryology, Faculty of Biology and Soil Sciences, Saint Petersburg State University, 7/9 Universitetskaya nab., St. Petersburg, 199034, Russia

    Yegor Malashichev

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  1. Karina Karenina
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  2. Andrey Giljov
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  3. Dmitry Glazov
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  4. Yegor Malashichev
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Correspondence to Yegor Malashichev.

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Communicated by S. D. Twiss

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Karenina, K., Giljov, A., Glazov, D. et al. Social laterality in wild beluga whale infants: comparisons between locations, escort conditions, and ages. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 67, 1195–1204 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-013-1545-2

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