Dear Marmamers, This year Shark Bay Dolphin Research celebrated 40 years of long-term investigation into a remarkable animal population that includes not only alliances of alliances, but several forms of tool use with differing transmission pathways. Following on from Chabanne et al.’s recent publication on evidence of male alliances from a small community of Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins some way south (the Swan-Canning Riverpark, dolphins which will no doubt be seen from the venue of the 2024 Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals in Perth) in the Special Issue of Mammalian Biology, we are pleased to bring to your attention another paper in the same issue, this one on sociality among female dolphins in Shark Bay. The citation is as follows: SM Marfurt, SJ Allen, MR Bizzozzero, EP Willems, SL King, RC Connor, AM Kopps, S Wild, L Gerber, S Wittwer, M Krützen 2022. Association patterns and community structure among female bottlenose dolphins: environmental, genetic and cultural factors. Mammalian Bioliogy https://doi.org/10.1007/s42991-022-00259-x. Abstract: Social structuring from assortative associations may affect individual fitness, as well as population-level processes. Gaining a broader understanding of social structure can improve our knowledge of social evolution and inform wildlife conservation. We investigated association patterns and community structure of female Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) in Shark Bay, Western Australia, assessing the role of kinship, shared culturally transmitted foraging techniques, and habitat similarity based on water depth. Our results indicated that associations are influenced by a combination of uni- and biparental relatedness, cultural behaviour and habitat similarity, as these were positively correlated with a measure of dyadic association. These findings were matched in a community level analysis. Members of the same communities overwhelmingly shared the same habitat and foraging techniques, demonstrating a strong homophilic tendency. Both uni- and biparental relatedness between dyads were higher within than between communities. Our results illustrate that intraspecific variation in sociality in bottlenose dolphins is influenced by a complex combination of genetic, cultural, and environmental aspects. You can score yourself a shiny PDF here https://rdcu.be/cYQO2 or go here http://www.sharkbaydolphins.org/publications/, where you will also find links to the other papers from 2022 (below) and prior. Connor RC, Krützen M, Allen SJ, Sherwin WB, King SL 2022. Strategic intergroup alliances increase access to a contested resource in male bottlenose dolphins. PNAS 119: e2121723119. Chereskin E, Connor RC, Friedman WR, Jensen FH, Allen SJ, Sørensen PM, Krützen M, King SL 2022. Male dolphins use vocal exchanges to ‘bond at a distance’. Curr Biol 32: 1657–1663. Gerber L, Connor RC, Allen SJ, Horlacher K, King SL, Sherwin WB, Willems E, Wittwer S, Krützen M 2022. Social integration influences fitness in allied male dolphins. Curr Biol 32: 1664-1669. Manlik O, Lacy RC, Sherwin WB, Finn H, Loneragan NR, Allen SJ 2022. A stochastic model for estimating sustainable limits to wildlife mortality in a changing world. Cons Biol: e13897. All the best, Simon ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dr Simon J Allen Senior Lecturer School of Biological Sciences University of Bristol Mob: +44 (0) 77047 53101 [UK] / +61 (0) 416 083 653 [AU] Email: Simon.Allen@bristol.ac.uk<mailto:Simon.Allen@bristol.ac.uk> / Simon.Allen@uwa.edu.au<mailto:Simon.Allen@uwa.edu.au> Web: http://www.sharkbaydolphins.org Twitter: @SimonJAllen1 [Chart, scatter chart Description automatically generated] Recent papers: Estimating sustainable limits to human-caused wildlife mortality https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cobi.13897 Cooperation-based concept formation in bottlenose dolphins https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-22668-1 Non-vertical transmission of a dolphin foraging innovation https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(20)30756-9 Declines in dolphin survival and reproduction following a heatwave https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0960-9822%2819%2930217-9 “Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing–absolutely nothing–half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” (Kenneth Grahame) “I must say here, in passing, that those captains who have scientists… aboard their ships, must take with them a good supply of patience. I admit that although I have no lack of it, the scientists have frequently driven me to the end of my tether...” (Nicolas Baudin)