Manon Themelin dives into the complexity of dolphin social relationships

An interview with DCP Research Associate Manon Themelin and DCP Director Dr. Kathleen Dudzinski.  We learn how Manon got started researching dolphins and the exciting discoveries she’s made. Manon’s research into relationship quality (RQ) shows that the methods we apply to the study of ravens and chimpanzees works just as well for dolphins, albeit with some minor tweaks to accommodate for dolphins’ aquatic lifestyle and peculiar ways of socializing. Also, it turns out that the positions dolphin adopt when swimming next to each other and how they navigate each others’ slipstreams can tell us a lot about the relationships between individual dolphins.

Links:

Manon’s peer-reviewed article on relationship quality in dolphins: Themelin, M, Ribic, CA, Melillo-Sweeting, K, Dudzinski, KM (2020). New approach for relationship quality study in dolphins. Behavioural Processes. 181: 104260. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2020.104260

DCP’s Deep Dive episode with Manon! In this Deep Dive, recorded on 11 March 2021, DCP’s former master’s student and current collaborator, Manon Themelin discusses relationships, and more precisely the quality of relationships, in dolphins. She describes how we are studying “RQ” with dolphins at RIMS and Bimini.