Dr Luke Rendell

MASTS Reader in Biology

Harold Mitchell 308
tel. 01334 463499
fax.
ler4@st-andrews.ac.uk

"The true biologist deals with life, with teeming boisterous life, and learns something from it, learns that the first rule of life is living"
John Steinbeck, The Log from the Sea of Cortez

 

ResearcherID: G-2594-2010  orcid.org/0000-0002-1121-9142  

I am a Reader in Biology supported by the Marine Alliance for Science and Technology Scotland (MASTS). I am affiliated with the Scottish Ocean Institute, Sea Mammal Research Unit, the Centre for Biological Diversity, the Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, and the Institute of Behavioural and Neural Sciences.

I have broad research interests, largely centred around the evolution of learning, behaviour and communication, with a special focus on marine mammals.

Latest paper(s)
Nick A.R. Jones, Mike Webster, Christopher N. Templeton, Stefan Schuster, Luke Rendell (2018) Presence of an audience and consistent interindividual differences affect archerfish shooting behaviour. Animal Behaviour DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2018.04.024

In this study we investigated whether archerfish display any behavioural changes in response to the presence of an audience while using their specialized foraging tactic of spitting precisely aimed jets of water at prey targets. We found that in the presence of another fish, archerfish took longer to shoot, made more orientations (aiming events) per shot, and tended to be closer to the target at the time of shooting. Our results show that archerfish are sensitive to, and adjust their shooting behaviour in response to, the presence of an audience and highlight the importance of social context in this fish species.

Elena Miu, Ned Gulley, Kevin N. Laland & Luke Rendell (2018) Innovation and cumulative culture through tweaks and leaps in online programming contests. Nature Communications volume 9

The ability to build progressively on the achievements of earlier generations is central to human uniqueness, but experimental investigations of this cumulative cultural evolution lack real-world complexity. We studied the dynamics of cumulative culture using a large-scale data set from online collaborative programming competitions run over 14 years. Results showed that cumulative cultural evolution reduces technological diversity over time, as populations focus on refining high-performance solutions. While individual entries borrow from few sources, iterative copying allows populations to integrate ideas from many sources, demonstrating a new form of collective intelligence. Our results imply that maximising technological progress requires accepting high levels of failure.

Book
Our book, The Cultural Lives of Whales and Dolphins is even available at Amazon! Hear it discussed on BBC Radio 4's "Start the Week". Listen to a podcast of a discussion between myself and author Phillip Hoare at the LSE Philosophy Forum here

Research
Sperm whale society and ecology
I have been studying the ecology, communication and societies of sperm whales, the largest of the toothed whales, showing how long lasting social groups use distinctive vocal dialects that appear to be culturally transmitted. Part of this work is my involvement in running the Balearics Sperm Whale Project and as a collaborator of the Dominica Sperm Whale Project.

Culture in whales and dolphins
In whales and dolphins we find examples of both complex communication and apparently widespread social learning, a simple form of culture. I am using statistical models to assess the evidence for social learning in wild cetaceans.

Evolutionary modelling
I also use evolutionary simulation models to understand how these processes like social learning might have evolved, and how they might be related to the evolution of other kinds of behaviour, such as cooperation and niche-construction.

Human social learning
I use experimental approaches to understand how we negotiate the trade-offs involved in deciding whether to use social information to make simple decisions, as a window into how we have evolved to make best use of our cultural inheritance.

East Coast Marine Mammal Acoustic Study (ECOMMAS)
We are deploying passive listening buoys along the Scottish coastline in collaboration with Marine Scotland Science to monitor the impact of coastal windfarm development and also to give insight into acoustic behaviour of marine mammals.
 

Science without borders!

An approach to academic life: 12 guidelines for survival

Alumni
Dr Charlotte Dunn finished her PhD "Insights into Blainville's Beaked Whale (Mesoplodon densirostris) communication" in January 2015

Dr Thomas Morgan completed his PhD, co-supervised with Kevin Laland and titled "Experimental studies of human social learning and its evolution" in December 2013

Dr Laurel Fogarty completed her PhD, co-supervised with Kevin Laland and titled "From social learning to culture: Mathematical and computational models of cultural evolution" in June 2012

Dr Ricardo Antunes completed his PhD, co-supervised with Phil Hammond and Jonathan Gordon, and titled "Variation in sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) coda vocalizations and social structure in the North Atlantic Ocean" in March 2009

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Publications

Bossley, M, Steiner, A, Brakes, P, Shrimpton, J, Foster, C & Rendell, L 2018, 'Tail walking in a bottlenose dolphin community: the rise and fall of an arbitrary cultural 'fad'' Biology Letters, vol. 14, no. 9. DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2018.0314
Jones, NAR, Webster, M, Templeton, CN, Schuster, S & Rendell, L 2018, 'Presence of an audience and consistent interindividual differences affect archerfish shooting behaviour' Animal Behaviour, vol. 141, pp. 95-103. DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2018.04.024
Kendal, R, Boogert, N, Rendell, L, Laland, KN, Webster, M & Jones, P 2018, 'Social learning strategies: bridge-building between fields' Trends in Cognitive Sciences, vol. 22, no. 7, pp. 651-665. DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2018.04.003
Miu, E, Gulley, N, Laland, KN & Rendell, L 2018, 'Innovation and cumulative culture through tweaks and leaps in online programming contests' Nature Communications, vol. 9, 2321. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-04494-0
Bearzi, G, Kerem, D, Furey, NB, Pitman, RL, Rendell, LE & Reeves, RR 2018, 'Whale and dolphin behavioural responses to dead conspecifics' Zoology, vol. 128, pp. 1-15. DOI: 10.1016/j.zool.2018.05.003
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Dr Luke Rendell
Harold Mitchell Building
 University of St Andrews
 St Andrews
 Fife
 KY16 9TH
 UK

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