Mapping the diversity of cetacean and primate cultural heritage

There is burgeoning evidence for animal culture across a range of vertebrate taxa. Social learning, the process that results in non-human culture, can have population-level effects and thus can inform conservation science and policy. It has been argued that non-human culture can provide insights into both how conservation is conducted and what managers should be aiming to conserve (the ‘unit to conserve’). Here we conducted a literature review for studies about culture in cetaceans and primates, and we provide three datasets that underpin an interactive cartographic representation of the diversity of cultural behaviours and ecological contexts in which they arise, including in co-operation or mutualism with human local populations. Our work is intended as a pilot project for a central repository for scientific evidence of the vast diversity of living cultural heritage of non-human societies. Loosely based on the impressive UNESCO resource on human cultures: Dive into Cultural Heritage, ..., We collected papers primarily through non-exhaustive literature searches on Scopus and Google Scholar. We searched for keywords “culture, social learning, tradition” alongside common names for the following species; Humpback Whales, Killer Whales, Sperm Whales, Chimpanzees, Orangutans, Gorillas, Capuchins, Japanese Macaques - and the following groups: Dolphins, Great Apes, Monkeys, Whales. Further papers were found in the reference lists for books and reviews, most notably: Whitehead & Rendell (2015), Brakes et al. (2021), and Whiten (2021). Finally, a number of papers were found through connections with colleagues of co-authors.
Papers were added to the dataset if they represented animal culture, here defined as “Information or behaviour – shared within a community – which is acquired from conspecifics through some form of social learning” (after Whitehead & Rendell 2015). A notable exception to this rule is the literature on migratory (Baker et al., 2013; O’Corry-Crowe et al.,..., , # Mapping the diversity of cetacean and primate cultural heritage

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.h18931zvf](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.h18931zvf)

## Description of the data and file structure

Each record within each dataset represents a population showing a particular culture, either observed directly in the study or referenced in the study. The datasets are unrelated to each other (primates, cetaceans, and cetacean migrations), and are shown on the same interactive map.

The interactive map ([https://arcg.is/fCDrC](https://arcg.is/fCDrC)[) ](https://arcg.is/18mfrK2)contains three different datasets as a pilot study to begin quantifying animal culture: primates, cetaceans, and then specifically information about migrations of cetaceans. Here are tables describing the metadata within each of the datasets that are visualized in the maps.

### Data definitions for the primate dataset

(published as a Storymap here: [https://arcg.is/18mfrK2](https://arcg.is/18mfrK2))

* **Paper ID**: ...