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Science 27 November 1998:
Vol. 282. no. 5394, p. 1609
DOI: 10.1126/science.282.5394.1609n
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This Week in Science

Is cultural evolution responsible for the markedly low levels of mitochondrial diversity in matrilineal species of whales? As Whitehead reports (p. 1708; see the news story by Vogel), females of these species, which include pilot, sperm, and killer whales, spend their entire lives with close female relatives under circumstances conducive to cultural development, such as a large body size, low travel costs, dispersed and patchy food sources, and the efficient transmission of sound. How would this cultural inheritance--defined as information learned from the same species that causes variation in behavior--affect mitochondrial diversity? Whitehead proposes that the selection of particular cultural traits causes an incidental reduction in diversity at neutral linked genetic loci.




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