Study
Ecological knowledge, leadership, and the evolution of menopause in killer whales
Brent, Lauren J. N.; Franks, Daniel W.; Foster, Emma A.; Balcomb, Kenneth C.; Croft, Darren P.
Current Biology, 2015
Records of which individual led group movement were analysed against age, sex and reproductive status, and against salmon abundance, to test whether older post-reproductive females led more often when foraging conditions were poor.
- Studied in
- Orcinus orca
- Sample size
- movement records across many years of population monitoring
Post-reproductive females led group movement disproportionately often, and did so most in years when salmon were scarce.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
Older females act as repositories of ecological knowledge, and that knowledge is most valuable when conditions are difficult.
How NatureHQ reads it
This is the killer whale counterpart to the elephant matriarch work, and the two together make a stronger claim than either alone: in two long-lived, socially complex mammals, information held by old females measurably improves group outcomes. The scarcity interaction is the persuasive part — leadership mattering *more* when food is scarce is what an information account predicts and a simple dominance account does not.
- Leadership is inferred from spatial position, which is an imperfect proxy for decision-making.
- One population and one prey species; generalisation to other killer whale ecotypes is untested.
- Observational, so knowledge transfer itself is not directly measured.
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.
Published by: Cell PressPublished in a Cell Press journal.
doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2015.01.037
This reference was resolved automatically against Crossref and OpenAlex on 2026-08-11.
NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-08-09.