Dataset Information

The ability of artisanal fishers to recognize the dolphins they cooperate with.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:Human-animal interactions with mutual benefits in the wild are rare. Such positive interactions seem to require an intricate knowledge from the human side on the animals' behavior and their habitat. In southern Brazil, dolphins and human net-casting fishers have specialized in a cooperative foraging, in which fishers report being able to identify and name dolphins. Here, we evaluate the consensus in their ability to recognize the individual dolphins they interact with. By investigating the reliability of this recognition process, we assess the pros and cons of relying on the fishers' traditional knowledge to further understand the behavior and ecology of dolphins at the individual level. We also assess the potential role of traditional knowledge for the maintenance of this unusual interaction. METHODS:We interviewed 38 fishers using a semi-structured questionnaire. During each interview, we evaluate their recognition ability of dolphins by showing high-quality photos of dorsal fins of different dolphins, asking questions about the dolphins' behavior and traits, and about how fishers recognize each dolphin. We also evaluated information about the fishers. Different indices were used to measure the fishers' ability to recognize dolphins via photos, and their consensus on individual identification. These indices were modeled as functions of traits of both dolphins and fishers to investigate which ones influence the recognition process. RESULTS:We found that fishers can primarily recognize dolphins by natural marks in the dorsal fin but there was little consensus in recognition. Fishers also tend to repeat the name of the most "popular" dolphins for different photos, indicating low reliability in individual recognition. We also found that fishers who learned from relatives (vertical learning) how to interact with dolphins tend to be more accurate and have higher consensus in dolphin recognition than those fishers who learned from friends (horizontal learning) or individually. CONCLUSION:Artisanal fishers have a deep understanding of the dolphins and the system they are inserted in. However, the lack of consensus in identifying individual dolphins herein reported indicates that using their traditional knowledge to further understand dolphin behavior and ecology at the individual level requires caution. Our study also suggests that the transmission of this tradition from parents to sons can be crucial to preserve such a unique human-animal positive interaction in its original form.

SUBMITTER: da Rosa DSX

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7257239 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

The ability of artisanal fishers to recognize the dolphins they cooperate with.

da Rosa Daiane S X DSX Hanazaki Natalia N Cantor Maurício M Simões-Lopes Paulo C PC Daura-Jorge Fábio G FG

Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine 20200529 1

<h4>Background</h4>Human-animal interactions with mutual benefits in the wild are rare. Such positive interactions seem to require an intricate knowledge from the human side on the animals' behavior and their habitat. In southern Brazil, dolphins and human net-casting fishers have specialized in a cooperative foraging, in which fishers report being able to identify and name dolphins. Here, we evaluate the consensus in their ability to recognize the individual dolphins they interact with. By inve ...[more]

PMID: 32471453

Similar Datasets

Project description:Small-scale fisheries are important to livelihoods and subsistence seafood consumption of millions of fishers. Sea cucumbers are fished worldwide for export to Asia, yet few studies have assessed factors affecting socioeconomics and wellbeing among fishers. We interviewed 476 men and women sea cucumber fishers at multiple villages within multiple locations in Fiji, Kiribati, Tonga and New Caledonia using structured questionnaires. Low rates of subsistence consumption confirmed a primary role of sea cucumbers in income security. Prices of sea cucumbers sold by fishers varied greatly among countries, depending on the species. Gender variation in landing prices could be due to women catching smaller sea cucumbers or because some traders take advantage of them. Dissatisfaction with fishery income was common (44% of fishers), especially for i-Kiribati fishers, male fishers, and fishers experiencing difficulty selling their catch, but was uncorrelated with sale prices. Income dissatisfaction worsened with age. The number of livelihood activities averaged 2.2-2.5 across countries, and varied significantly among locations. Sea cucumbers were often a primary source of income to fishers, especially in Tonga. Other common livelihood activities were fishing other marine resources, copra production in Kiribati, agriculture in Fiji, and salaried jobs in New Caledonia. Fishing other coastal and coral reef resources was the most common fall-back livelihood option if fishers were forced to exit the fishery. Our data highlight large disparities in subsistence consumption, gender-related price equity, and livelihood diversity among parallel artisanal fisheries. Improvement of supply chains in dispersed small-scale fisheries appears as a critical need for enhancing income and wellbeing of fishers. Strong evidence for co-dependence among small-scale fisheries, through fall-back livelihood preferences of fishers, suggests that resource managers must mitigate concomitant effects on other fisheries when considering fishery closures. That is likely to depend on livelihood diversification programs to take pressure off co-dependent fisheries.

Project description:Globally, fisheries are challenged by the combined impacts of overfishing, degradation of ecosystems and impacts of climate change, while fisheries livelihoods are further pressured by conservation policy imperatives. Fishers' adaptive responses to these pressures, such as exiting from a fishery to pursue alternative livelihoods, determine their own vulnerability, as well as the potential for reducing fishing effort and sustaining fisheries. The willingness and ability to make particular adaptations in response to change, such as exiting from a declining fishery, is influenced by economic, cultural and institutional factors operating at scales from individual fishers to national economies. Previous studies of exit from fisheries at single or few sites, offer limited insight into the relative importance of individual and larger-scale social and economic factors. We asked 599 fishers how they would respond to hypothetical scenarios of catch declines in 28 sites in five western Indian Ocean countries. We investigated how socioeconomic variables at the individual-, household- and site-scale affected whether they would exit fisheries. Site-level factors had the greatest influence on readiness to exit, but these relationships were contrary to common predictions. Specifically, higher levels of infrastructure development and economic vitality - expected to promote exit from fisheries - were associated with less readiness to exit. This may be due to site level histories of exit from fisheries, greater specialisation of fishing households, or higher rewards from fishing in more economically developed sites due to technology, market access, catch value and government subsidies. At the individual and household scale, fishers from households with more livelihood activities, and fishers with lower catch value were more willing to exit. These results demonstrate empirically how adaptive responses to change are influenced by factors at multiple scales, and highlight the importance of understanding natural resource-based livelihoods in the context of the wider economy and society.

Project description:TheoryArgumentation is crucial for all academic disciplines. Nevertheless, a lack of argumentation skills among students is evident. Two core aspects of argumentation are the recognition of argument structures (e.g., backing up claims with premises, according to the Toulmin model) and the recognition of fallacies. As both aspects may be related to content knowledge, students studying different subjects might exhibit different argumentation skills depending on whether the content is drawn from their own or from a foreign subject. Therefore, we developed an instrument to measure the recognition of both argument structures and fallacies among the groups of preservice teachers and business economics students in both their respective domains (pedagogy and economics), and a neutral domain (sustainability). For the recognition of fallacies, we distinguished between congruent and incongruent fallacies. In congruent fallacies, the two aspects of argument quality, i.e., deductive validity and inductive strength, provide converging evidence against high argument quality. In incongruent fallacies, these two aspects diverge. Based on dual process theories, we expected to observe differences in the recognition of congruent and incongruent fallacies.AimsWe investigated whether these two abilities are domain-specific and whether the recognition of fallacies depends on the congruence of two aspects of argument quality.Methods267 preservice teachers and 56 business economics students participated in the study. For the recognition of argument structures, participants assigned the five statements constituting one argument to the corresponding component according to the Toulmin model. For the recognition of fallacies, we created arguments and incorporated a common fallacy into some of them: formal fallacy, overgeneralization, irrelevance, or circularity. Participants rated whether the argument was cogent or not, which was followed by a brief justification.ResultsDomain specificity could not be found for either of both abilities. For the recognition of fallacies, two dimensions were found: a congruent dimension (formal fallacies and overgeneralizations) and an incongruent dimension (irrelevance and circularity).DiscussionThe instrument measures the recognition of both argument structures and fallacies in these two groups across domains. The recognition of fallacies differs depending on whether the deductive validity and the inductive strength of the argument are equally indicative of argument quality or not.

Dataset Information

The ability of artisanal fishers to recognize the dolphins they cooperate with.

Publications

The ability of artisanal fishers to recognize the dolphins they cooperate with.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets