Knowledge transmission, culture and the consequences of social disruption in wild elephants

Cultural knowledge is widely presumed to be important for elephants. In all three species of elephant, individuals tend to congregate around older conspecifics, creating opportunities for social transmission. However, direct evidence of social learning and cultural traditions in elephants is scarce. Here, we briefly outline that evidence then provide a systematic review of how elephant societies respond to the loss of potentially knowledgeable individuals or opportunities for knowledge transfer, which we characterize as social disruption. We consider observations from 95 peer-reviewed, primary research papers that describe disruption to elephant societies or networks via the removal or death of individuals. Natural deaths were mentioned in 14 papers, while 70 detailed human-caused deaths or disruption. Grouping descriptions according to consequences for behaviour and sociality, and demography and fitness, we show that severely disrupted populations are less cohesive, may exhibit reduced fitness or calf survival and respond inappropriately to threats and predators. We suggest that severe social disruption can inhibit or break potential pathways of information transmission, providing indirect evidence for the role of social transmission in elephants. This has implications for elephant conservation amid increasing anthropogenic change across their habitats.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Animal culture: conservation in a changing world’.