Eric Patterson

• PhD
• Researcher at National Marine Fisheries Service

Infectious respiratory diseases have detrimental impacts across wildlife taxa, particularly in marine species. Despite this vulnerability, we lack information on the complex spatial and contact structures of marine populations which reduces our ability to understand disease spread and our preparedness for epidemic response. We leveraged a collated...

Anthropogenic global change is occurring at alarming rates, leading to increased urgency in the ability to monitor wildlife health in real time. Monitoring sentinel marine species, such as bottlenose dolphins, is particularly important due to extensive anthropogenic modifications to their habitats. The most common non-invasive method of monitoring...

Dolphin morbillivirus has caused mass mortalities in dolphin populations globally. Given their role as ecosystem sentinels, mass mortalities among these populations can be detrimental. Morbillivirus is transmitted through respiratory droplets and occurs when dolphins breathe synchronously, a variable social behavior. To assess the role of variable...

As demands for wildlife tourism increase, provisioning has become a popular means of providing up-close viewing to the public. At Monkey Mia, Shark Bay, Australia, up to five adult female Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) visit a 100 m stretch of beach daily to receive fish handouts. In 2011, a severe marine heatwave (MHW) devasta...

Sequence learning underlies many uniquely human behaviours, from complex tool use to language and ritual. To understand whether this fundamental cognitive feature is uniquely derived in humans requires a comparative approach. We propose that the vicarious (but not individual) learning of novel arbitrary sequences represents a human cognitive specia...

Animals’ affiliative behaviour is, in many species, driven by population density. Although the causes of such an effect are probably varied, affiliative social behaviour can sometimes be used to minimise conflict and competition when conspecific density is high. However, individuals might instead use multiple different social tactics (e.g. social a...

Maternal care varies across taxa from brief, minimal care to long-term, intensive care. Mammalian mothers provide extensive and energetically expensive care by definition through pregnancy and lactation, which can extend for years, resulting in behavioural trade-offs between resource acquisition and direct care. In marine environments, mammalian mo...

Long-term studies often rely on natural markings for individual identification across time. The primary method for identification in small cetaceans relies on dorsal fin shape, scars, and other natural markings. However, dorsal fin markings can vary substantially over time and the dorsal fin can become unrecognizable after an encounter with a boat...

Sex differences in adult behaviour are well documented, but less is known about the ontogeny of these differences. In mammals, the transition to independence, from infancy to the juvenile period, is when these sex differences are likely to become prominent. Here, we examined sex differences in behavioural development among calf and juvenile bottlen...

Sexual coercion results from extreme conflict over mating. As a male strategy to overcome female resistance, coercion can impose fitness costs on females. Among mammals, most cases involve single males or temporary coalitions, with allied aggression towards females being rare. Among Shark Bay bottlenose dolphins, Tursiops cf. aduncus, male alliance...

Network null models are important to drawing conclusions about individual- and population-(or graph) level metrics. While the null models of binary networks are well studied, recent literature on weighted networks suggests that: (1) many so-called ‘weighted metrics’ do not actually depend on weights, and (2) many metrics that supposedly measure hig...

In this chapter, we explore examples of novel, unusual, and atypical behavior by both wild and captive whales and dolphins in an effort to inform our understanding of cetacean innovative and creative abilities. While innovative and perhaps creative behavior occurs in a variety of contexts for both suborders, far more examples have been observed in...

In contrast to other primates, human children's imitation performance goes from low to high fidelity soon after infancy. Are such changes associated with the development of other forms of learning? We addressed this question by testing 215 children (26–59 months) on two social conditions (imitation, emulation) – involving a demonstration – and two...

Effective foraging is necessary for nearly all animals, but most animals are not born with adult-like foraging performance. Instead, foraging skills are developed during an individual’s lifetime. Life-history theory predicts that adult-level foraging performance should be reached prior to the start of reproduction, but for most species, we know lit...

Humans excel at mirroring both others' actions (imitation) as well as others' goals and intentions (emulation). As most research has focused on imitation, here we focus on how social and asocial learning predict the development of goal emulation. We tested 215 preschool children on two social conditions (imitation, emulation) and two asocial condit...

Humans excel at mirroring both others' actions (imitation) as well as others' goals and intentions (emulation). As most research has focused on imitation, here we focus on how social and asocial learning predict the development of goal emulation. We tested 215 preschool children on two social conditions (imitation, emulation) and two asocial condit...

Activity budget data are essential for determining behavioral responses to physiological and ecological variables. Yet, few studies are available to investigate the robustness, accuracy, and biases of the methods used to estimate activity budgets for cetaceans. In this study, we compare activity budgets of 55 adult female bottlenose dolphins in Sha...

Tool-use research has focused primarily on land-based animals, with less consideration given to aquatic animals and the environmental challenges and conditions they face. Here, we review aquatic tool use and examine the contributing ecological, physiological, cognitive and social factors. Tool use among aquatic animals is rare but taxonomically div...

Animal tool use is of inherent interest given its relationship to intelligence, innovation and cultural behaviour. Here we investigate whether Shark Bay bottlenose dolphins that use marine sponges as hunting tools (spongers) are culturally distinct from other dolphins in the population based on the criteria that sponging is both socially learned an...

Contrary to Vaesen's argument that humans are unique with respect to nine cognitive capacities essential for tool use, we suggest that although such cognitive processes contribute to variation in tool use, it does not follow that these capacities are necessary for tool use, nor that tool use shaped cognition per se, given the available data in cogn...

[This corrects the article on p. e22243 in vol. 6.].

Sponging and historical prey families. Numbers represent reference(s) used to determine swimbladder status. *Dissected in this study, +Swimbladder well known to be absent in entire family. (DOCX)

Divers performing human Sponging. Prey in order of appearance: Sepia sp., Parapercis nebulosa, Parapercis nebulosa, Neotrygon leylandi, Parapercis nebulosa, Parapercis nebulosa, Parapercis nebulosa, Synodus dermatogenys. (MP4)

Dolphins are well known for their exquisite echolocation abilities, which enable them to detect and discriminate prey species and even locate buried prey. While these skills are widely used during foraging, some dolphins use tools to locate and extract prey. In the only known case of tool use in free-ranging cetaceans, a subset of bottlenose dolphi...

Few studies of kinship in mammalian societies have been able to consider the complex interactions between home range overlap, association patterns and kinship, which have created a critical gap in our understanding of social evolution. We investigated the association patterns of female bottlenose dolphins, Tursiops aduncus, in the eastern gulf of S...

Mitochondrial DNA profile of blow and blood from individuals 4 to 6. For ease of presentation we only show an 80 base pair long fragment (178 bp-255 bp) of the 434 base pair long sequence for three out of the six individuals. The remaining three DNA profiles are available on the online supporting material Figure S2. Additionally, the full sequences...

Microsatellite DNA profile of blow and blood from the remaining 5 individuals. The top 3 panels represent the three microsatellite loci amplified from DNA extracted from blow. The 3 lower panels represent the three microsatellite loci amplified from DNA extracted from blood. The microsatellite locus lobs_Di21 is coloured green. The microsatellite l...

Molecular tools are now widely used to address crucial management and conservation questions. To date, dart biopsying has been the most commonly used method for collecting genetic data from cetaceans; however, this method has some drawbacks. Dart biopsying is considered inappropriate for young animals and has recently come under scrutiny from ethic...

Tool use is rare in wild animals, but of widespread interest because of its relationship to animal cognition, social learning and culture. Despite such attention, quantifying the costs and benefits of tool use has been difficult, largely because if tool use occurs, all population members typically exhibit the behavior. In Shark Bay, Australia, only...