- Speaker #0
Welcome to the Not Old Better Show, Smithsonian Associates'interview series on radio and podcast. The show covering all things health, wellness, culture, and more. The show for all of us who aren't old, we're better. Each week, we'll interview superstars, experts, and ordinary people doing extraordinary things, all related to this wonderful experience of getting better, not just older. Now, here's your host, the award-winning Paul Vogelzang.
- Speaker #1
Welcome to the Not Old Better Show, Smithsonian Associates interview series on radio and podcast, the show where we explore fascinating stories, insightful perspectives, and inspiring journeys that remind us all it's never too late to live a life full of adventure, connection, and meaning. I'm Paul Vogelsang, and I think you're going to really enjoy today's episode. I love animals. We are going to talk about the social networks of animals. So picture this, a world where relationships mean the... difference between life and death, where the company you keep determines whether you'll survive the night or find food for the day. This isn't the latest human drama. It's the hidden reality of the animal kingdom. From bats sharing blood to keep one another alive, to birds teaming up to steal a quick meal, animals have been forging social networks long before the first human logged onto the internet. their social media account. Our guest today is someone who has spent his life uncovering these incredible stories of connection and survival. Smithsonian Associate Dr. Lee Allen Dugatkin is an evolutionary biologist, a historian of science, and the author of the fascinating new book, The Well-Connected Animal, Social Networks, and the Wondrous Complexity of Animal Societies. Smithsonian Associate Lee Dugatkin will talk about his new book. He's going to take us on this eye-opening tour of the animal world, revealing how creatures big and small, from giraffes and elephants to Tasmanian devils and whales, navigate their complex social lives. As I say, you're just going to love this. I love animals. I know so many of you do. I know every time we do a show about pets or animals, I hear from all of you who love them just like me. And I know Dr. Lee Allen Dugatkin does too. So Lee Allen Dugatkin will be presenting at Smithsonian Associates coming up, and you'll get... a full version of his presentation today. We have Lee Allen Degacken talking for a few minutes about his story and animals. It's a story about us, about how understanding these intricate animal societies can shed light on our own relationships, especially as we age. In a world where staying connected is often the key to thriving, and it's especially true with us, Dr. Lee Alan Dugatkin's research reminds us that, like the animals we share this planet with, our social bonds are not just a luxury, they are essential. So, whether you're here to marvel at the wonders of nature or to find a deeper understanding of your own social connections, this episode is sure to resonate with you. So, stay tuned as we dive into the incredible and often surprising ways animals form and rely on their social networks, lessons that have profound implications for all of us. So join me in welcoming Smithsonian Associate, Dr. Lee Allen Degacken. Lee Allen Degacken, welcome to the program.
- Speaker #2
Oh, thank you very much. I've been looking forward to this very much.
- Speaker #1
Me too. I think this is going to be fascinating. We are going to be talking about your new book, The Well-Connected Animal. I'm looking forward to that discussion. You're going to be appearing at Smithsonian Associates coming up, and I'm looking forward to that too. Why don't we start there? Maybe tell us briefly about your upcoming Smithsonian Associates presentation. We'll have links. in our show notes to all the details so our audience can find out everything, but maybe just tell us briefly. And in particular, tell us a little bit about how you'll use Zoom, because I think we're all on Zoom these days and it's a great device, but maybe one special to you for this presentation.
- Speaker #2
Sure. I'm thrilled to be doing the Smithsonian event. I'm a huge fan of the Institute and everything that it stands for. In terms of what I'll be doing there and the use of Zoom, what I really want to do is... Take people around the world and show them how social networks play out in everything from dolphins and chimpanzees to honeybees and crickets. And so the way I'm going to do that with Zoom is I'm going to have a slideshow going, but it's not going to be an academic slideshow. It's meant as kind of a fast moving trip where we discuss sort of what a social networks look like in non-humans. How important are they? Where do you find them? And what kind of implications understanding social networks and other species has?
- Speaker #1
That's great. Thank you. Yeah. Well, as I say, I'm looking forward to this conversation, I think. the idea of dolphins and social networks really has got me interested. So we'll talk about that in just a moment, but maybe tell us a little bit about that. Tell us about the inspiration for your book, because I think it is just a fascinating subject. And you've done so much research into this. Congratulations on the book itself. What sparked your interest in this subject?
- Speaker #2
Sure. Well, I mean, so I'm an animal behaviorist and I've been doing this since the late 1980s. And a lot of my own work looks at how nuanced and sophisticated animal behavior really is. And the way it sort of started was. you know, not thinking about animals as little robots that are programmed to do this or that, but they really respond when they're involved in, say, interactions with another individual. And so first we start thinking, well, they're embedded in these kind of two animal interactions. And then over time, we began to realize it's more complicated than that. You can have three individuals, some of them are spying on the others while they're interacting. And I did some work on all of those fronts. But I have to say, even I was relatively surprised when I learned about animal social networks, which go beyond this idea of a couple of animals interacting or three animals, but rather these large networks where information is flowing back and forth across the networks. So we did a little bit of work on this in my own laboratory with my student, but the book itself really is focusing on the incredible work that others have done all over the planet. And it's been exciting in the sense that I've learned a tremendous amount. I can go into the literature and I can read kind of the primary papers, the technical papers. But when you talk with the researchers and you see what it's like on a day-to-day basis to study these complex webs of interactions, it was really enlightening for me. And it was also really exciting in a sense that so many of these researchers are young. They're using the tools that historically were used to build Facebook. and Twitter and other things, and they're applying them to non-humans. And so when I started realizing all this, I got very excited and the book is the result.
- Speaker #1
Well, give us a sense from a very lay perspective, as accessible as you can. I love science, but I'm in no way a scientist, but tell us about your most memorable experience in terms of researching this. book and maybe in talking to other researchers, maybe in looking at the swimming with the manta rays or stopping the monkeys from stealing iPads. What really stood out to you as being the most fascinating experience that you came across in doing this book?
- Speaker #2
There are a number of things that jump to my mind. One is just how fundamental these social networks are to animals. So for example, They network in almost every possible way you can imagine. They network in terms of getting their food. They network in terms of protecting themselves against predators. They network when they cooperate with each other. networks are important actually in fighting and aggression networks are important in interactions between parents and their offspring so that was one thing that was really memorable other things include like you know i think most of our listeners might not be surprised if perhaps chimpanzees were involved in social networks because they're one of our closest living relatives but the fact that you see it not just in primates but all over in different mammal species. And we can talk about particular examples as we go along. But you also see in birds in really sophisticated ways. And as I mentioned, you even see it in insects, which was very enlightening. You know, in terms of just the stories that it excited me. You mentioned a couple of them. When you talk with the researchers who are on the ground and they're out there doing field work, it's really hard. I mean, you know, when you're studying manta rays, for example, you've got to swim around with them and watch them or sit at the bottom of the water in a scuba suit and watch their social networks. When you are studying these macaque monkeys that... I think we'll talk about more in a little bit. You have these wonderful stories where the researchers are again, it's hard work. You got to get up at four o'clock in the morning. You got to know where the animals are. You got to be able to follow them. And so nowadays. A lot of the data taking is on digital devices like iPads. And there are these great stories where they come with their iPads, the researchers, and if they put them down for a second, one of the monkeys grabs it and runs away. And what are you going to do? I mean, you need your iPad for taking the data. It's an expensive piece of equipment and you got to figure out on the spot, what are you going to do? How are you going to get that monkey to give you back the iPad? And so there are these great stories like that all over. You know, in terms of the science, there were just so many wonderful examples that we could go through, including the dolphins and the chimpanzees and so much more.
- Speaker #1
Let's talk about the dolphins, because that one really did surprise me from a couple of ways. You can definitely see the macaque monkeys grabbing an iPad. It was harder for me to understand how the dolphin was using a sponge. and using that sponge to then put it on its face. Tell us about that, because I thought that was one of the most fascinating aspects of this discovery of animals using tools, number one, but also in following parental guidance and then... networking to learn more. Sure.
- Speaker #2
So there's a wonderful long-term study now, I guess, 45 years now in Dolphin Bay in Australia, where researchers have been studying these dolphins there. And they've, over the years, gotten to know a thousand or more dolphins. And there are these little mug shots of each of them so they can keep track of who's who. One of the incredible things they discovered there a while back now is that dolphins use tools and the tools that the dolphins use. Like, as you say, it's sort of easy to imagine a primate picking something up. But how does a dolphin use a tool? And basically, the tools are living organisms. So they are actually sponges that are in the bay. And what they do is they hunt around for a perfect sponge that fits over their snout. Okay. And basically they squeeze their snout into the sponge. And as I say, they don't just do this with any sponge. They get one that they search around. Once they find one that fits nicely over the snout, they're very protective about it. They keep going back to it. Now, why do they do this? Well, the reason they do it is that a lot of the... fish that they're hunting for burrow down under the rocks and sand at the bottom of the bay and they're hard to get out, right? And so if you're trying to pound down and get them to come out from under their hiding places, when there are rocks and all sorts of sharp things, that hurts your snout if you're a dolphin. If you have a sponge over it, it cushions the blow. And so what they do is they basically point down and they have their snout covered by a sponge and they just pound down there. and it gets the fish that are hiding out. In fact, the researchers themselves put sponges on their hands and went down and did this to see if it actually worked. And it really does work. Okay, so that's incredible because it's tool use in a non-human. It's modifying something else for a different use. Okay, now in terms of the networks, this operates at a couple of different levels. So it looks like that the dolphins mostly learn this. from their mothers. So when they're young and they're watching their mothers do this, they seem to learn how to do it. And the reason we say this is through various different ways, you can demonstrate that if the dolphin's mother is more likely to have used a sponge, then the offspring is more likely to use it when it grows older. And we can also show that that's not genetic, right? They're actually learning that. And so there's a kind of mini networking going on in there. But there's a network going on at a different level, which is that you tend to see networks of spongers who hang around with each other. Now, the thing is that when they go down and sponge, they don't do it together. They're just swimming around together when they're not doing that. And the question is, why would they do that? The researchers think it is that individuals who sponge just have a good general sense of the best places to go and use these tools and find the food. So you hang around with others who are very good at it. When you do it yourself, you generally do it on your own or maybe with your young, but this helps you figure out where you should do it. So the networking is fundamental to how they get their food.
- Speaker #1
Fascinating. Hi, it's Paul. Do you love... entertaining, informative, eclectic, insightful programs about culture, health, science, life, and everything Smithsonian? As part of our Smithsonian Associates interview series on radio and podcast, we're introducing you to the new Smithsonian Associates streaming series. Smithsonian, a nonprofit organization, is excited to present this new aspect of their 55 years as the world's largest museum-based educational program. Join us from the comfort of your home as we periodically interview Smithsonian Associate Guest Speakers. Our audience here on radio and podcasts can explore our website for more information, links, and details at notold-better.com. Thanks, everybody. Our guest today is Lee Allen Dugacken, who's written the new book, The Well-Connected Animal Social Networks and the Wondrous Complexity of Animal Societies. I just love the book. Thanks so much for sharing it with me, Lee. The book is getting great reviews online, too. I loved what the Wall Street Journal had to say, combines accessible prose with solid science. But I thought. that what new scientists said about the book really just stood out for me. It said about your new book, demonstrates that whatever creature you are, from a giraffe to a Tasmanian devil, life is all about who you know. So Lee Allen DeGacken, author of this wonderful new book, The Well-Connected Animal, it's all about who you know. So these animals, they follow one another, they learn, they become socially networked. What do we learn from them in these observations? Yeah.
- Speaker #2
So that's a great question. It's also a tricky one in the sense that, you know, people like me who study animal behavior, we want to be very careful about specific direct lessons that you might take out and use in your everyday life. But there are sort of these general themes that come out in terms that might be useful for our own thinking about the way that social networks play out in non-humans. And so one of the things that I learned as I was... doing this research was that there were certain, you might call them themes that kept coming up over and over again when you look at animal social networks. And some of them are very reminiscent of the way that social networks are important to us. So one of those, for example, is that animals rely on networks all the time, but they really rely on them when things get hard, when you need others. in various different ways as a kind of support system. And particularly now, beginning to understand that when disasters strike an animal population, just how much they fall back on their social networks to deal with this. My favorite example of this is those macaque monkeys that we talked about briefly before. There is an island called Cayo Santiago off of Puerto Rico. And a long time ago, back in the late 1930s, someone who studies primates, a primatologist, brought about 500 macaque monkeys from India to this island and let them go. And essentially today, the same work is going on many generations later. But the island is essentially Monkey Island, meaning that the only time humans can come onto this island is to study them. And there are about 1,500 or so macaques that live on this island. And people have come. They take a little ferry. They have to stay in cages while they're not doing the study. The animals are free to roam around the island. And so we know a tremendous amount about these animals after studying them for them and their offspring and grand offspring and so on for 70 years. Now, people had studied their social networks for a while now, 10, 20 years. And they had some basic understanding that social networks played a role. They were important, especially for females. The more network they were, the more offspring children they had, the more friends they had, the more children they had, the more friends their friends had, the more children they had. So it was all deeply connected. Now, all of a sudden, life on Cayo Santiago gets turned on its head when Hurricane Maria comes through in, I believe it was 2017. And basically, it wiped out about 70% of the plant life and vegetation on the island. Remarkably, and we still don't understand exactly how, only two macaques of the 1,500 or so died as a result of the hurricane. The people who were studying it, they were really worried when this happened that the population would be wiped out. Somehow, they don't quite know yet how they all survived, but they did. Now- Once the researchers tried to sort of rebuild what was going on on the island, their stations there and everything, they began to think, this is a wonderful opportunity for us to study social networks and how they change after a disaster. And so what they did was they went back and they studied the social networks in these mechanics before and after the hurricane hit, and they compared it to what happened before the network of the hurricane hit. the monkeys had formed more partners in their networks. They had created more friendships than they had before. They didn't rely particularly on the ones they had before and strengthen those. Instead, what they did was just they brought in the number of individuals who they interacted with and who interacted with them. And this seems to have really buffered them from the devastating effects of the hurricane. And again, what they found was not just your friends in a network, but your friends of friends in a network really matter. When I say that they form more friendships, they did it in a particular way. So in the macaques, these friendships really center on other monkeys. basically picking parasites off you that cause you trouble that you really can't reach very well. And so they basically groom you. So if you look at the new friends that were formed after the hurricane, what you find is that what the monkeys did was they formed new friendships with the friends of the friends they already had. And so if you knew somebody before the hurricane, then you were more likely to form a new friendship with one of their friends. then you were just randomly picking out another monkey on the island. And so it's sort of this, again, this deep connection and this deep networking that is going on. And in this case, it really helped them deal with a fundamental disaster that hit the island. And the researchers are still now these days trying to figure out even more about how all of that played out.
- Speaker #1
Fascinating. I think back to COVID. and how many of us became so isolated. These ideas about social networks for animals just applied directly to us. We need these communities. We need these friends for support and safety. I think we can learn so much from that.
- Speaker #2
I agree. These themes that emerge when you look at it across different species. And see, to me, that's one of the real powers of studying this in non-humans is that people study social networks in humans all the time. There's a whole field of research on that. But if you kind of think big... You have a problem, which is that your sample size is one. There is one species of humans and that's it. Now, if what's going on in non-humans can help us understand ourselves, all of a sudden we have this treasure chest of possible data points, right? Every species, every population is a different data point. And that allows you to search for these themes. And using social networks and disasters is one of the themes that emerges.
- Speaker #1
Again, our guest today is author Lee. Alan Dugackin, wonderful new book, The Well-Connected Animal. We will have links so their audience can find out more about Smithsonian Associate Lee Alan Dugackin, his upcoming presentation and his wonderful new book. So I've kind of an open-ended question for you, Lee Alan Dugackin. In terms of your book, as you're exploring animal behavior and psychology and anthropology, genetics and neurobiology, these are all areas you look at closely. How did these different fields interact in terms of your research? on animal social networks?
- Speaker #2
So if you think about animal social networks, say from a psychological perspective, to network is complex. and certainly it's more complex in humans in many ways than it is in non-humans, but it's still very complex in non-humans. And what that means, one of the things that psychologists are really interested in is learning, is culture, is generally this phenomenon of cognition. How do you think, how does it play out? Now, all of a sudden, when you have animal social networks, you have this wonderful opportunity to study learning, culture, basically how animals... think and how that affects their ability to form these complicated webs of social interactions. If you think about it the way that an anthropologist would, someone who studies human behavior, many anthropologists are interested in behavior in our closest relatives, and that is other primates. And so anthropologists often themselves not only study human populations, but non-human populations. They're interested in chimpanzees. They're interested in bonobos, what are often known as pygmy chimpanzees. They're interested in gorillas. A lot of the work on social networks focuses on these groups. So there are wonderful examples. We talked about sponges and dolphins. Chimpanzees also use sponges. And you can track the way that... Sponge use spreads throughout a group. In chimpanzees, people have done this wonderful work in what's known as the Budongo Forest in Uganda, where they actually were lucky enough to stumble on the first chimp that started using a sponge as a way to get water, to suck up water from a water hole. And they were literally able to track the spread individual by individual throughout the social network. That's the sort of thing you think about as an anthropologist. In terms of the genetics, I would say here, we're really in the early stages. So people have been studying these social networks and non-humans maybe for 20 years now. The work on genetics is much more recent, but even there, we're beginning to make strides. So one of the examples that I talk about in the book is this amazing study that was done on mice, house mice, the kind of things that run around that often you want to get out of your house. There's a barn in Switzerland where researchers had 400 house mice and they were studying their social network for various different reasons. Well, one of the things that they looked at was... genetics and social networks in the house mice. And I don't want to get too inside baseball on you. But basically, when you talk about genetics, one way you can study genetics is by looking at when genes turn on and when they turn off. And this is what they've done with genes in the brains of mice inside this little barn in Switzerland in the context of social networks. So you can look at, for example, the animals that are most deeply embedded in the social networks. And you can look at whether or not certain groups of genes are turned on earlier or turned off earlier in those animals than animals that are not as deeply embedded in their social networks. All of this, as I say, is just in the early stages, but it's very, very exciting. I will say also that another group who's very interested in this is people who are involved in things like Facebook and Twitter and other social networks, the people who build these networks. There's all sorts of very sophisticated algorithms that go into how you deal with a network that has billions of people in it. They're interested in what's going on in animal behavior because there was this fascinating give and take. Initially, animal behaviorists took the techniques that were used by people who model Facebook and Twitter, and they brought them in. Now, we have essentially... added all kinds of components to the study of networks by studying them in animals. So, for example, between generation networks, this is not something that people who study human networks is all that interested in. Now, animal behaviorists, because they are interested in that, have built tools that they can now be imported back in. And people who develop Facebook and X and Instagram, they use those tools.
- Speaker #1
Wonderful stuff. Lee Allen, Smithsonian associate. I just have one final question for you. And I just so appreciate your time. I could talk to you for a long time about this subject, but I wonder if you'll tell us maybe how your own understanding of animal social networks has influenced your personal human relationships and just your thoughts about community building.
- Speaker #2
It's an interesting question.
- Speaker #1
You know,
- Speaker #2
I would say that on a day-to-day basis, I don't know if anything has fundamentally changed about the way that I interact with other humans because of this. On the other hand.
- Speaker #0
I think my view of nature itself, and we're obviously part of nature, has changed fundamentally. So now when I'm out picking a walk and I hear a bird singing, I remember this wonderful work that was done on social networking in birds. When I'm out there and I'm looking at those squirrels moving around, whatever I see, I start thinking, you know, I wonder how that's embedded in a social network. And so while I couldn't pinpoint something in my day-to-day interactions, I do think it's made me realize just how fundamental these networks are to everything, including human behavior.
- Speaker #1
Oh, that's wonderful. Lee Allen Dugatkin, thank you so much for your time. Just an excellent book. I just want to recommend it to our audience as well as recommend Lee Allen Dugatkin's upcoming Smithsonian Associates presentation. We'll have links. More details in the show notes. Of course, Lee Allen Dugatkin's written this wonderful book, as well as many other books. But the title of this is The Well-Connected Animal, Social Networks, and the Wondrous Complexity of Animal Societies. I'm just going to be selfish and just say, please come back, Lee Allen Dugatkin, as you do more work on this, but all the other fascinating subjects that you research. We'd love to talk to you again. Oh,
- Speaker #0
I would love that as well. Thank you so much for having me.
- Speaker #1
Thank you. My thanks. to Lee Allen Dugatkin for his generous time today. You can find Lee Allen Dugatkin online and in our show notes, we will have direct links to Lee Allen Dugatkin's upcoming Smithsonian Associates presentation, as well as his wonderful new book. I just encourage everybody to check it out. It is titled The Well-Connected Animal, Social Networks, and the Wondrous Complexity of Animal Societies. Thank you, Smithsonian team, for all you do to support the show. Thank you to Sam Henniger for his wonderful assistance in keeping the show on track from an audio perspective, helping me with all of the production. I want to welcome Miranda Henniger to the team too. You all will be hearing from Miranda and Sam a lot more in upcoming episodes, but join me in welcoming them. And of course, I want to thank you, our wonderful Not Old Better Show audience on radio and podcast. Please be well, be safe, and let's talk about better. The Not Old Better Show. on radio and podcast, our Smithsonian Associates interview series. Thanks, everybody. We will see you next week.
- Speaker #2
Thanks for joining us this week on the Not Old Better Show, Smithsonian Associates interview series on radio and podcast. To find out more about all of today's stories or to view our extensive back catalog of previous shows, simply visit notold-better.com. Join us again next time as we deep dive into some of the most fascinating real-life stories from across the world, all focused on this wonderful experience of getting better, not just older. Let's talk about better. The Not Old Better Show.
- Speaker #1
Hi, one final thing. Please check out our website for this episode and all episodes at notold-better.com or subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts and be sure to check out your local radio stations to find out more about the Not Old Better Show on podcast and radio. You can find us all over social media. Our Twitter feed is Not Old Better, and we're on Instagram at Not Old Better too. The Not Old Better Show is a production of NOBS Studios. I'm Paul Vogelsang, and I hope you'll join me again next time to talk about better. The Not Old Better Show. Thanks, everybody. We'll see you next week.
