Cultural processes and demography: implications for conservation and beyond

Social transmission of cultural variants in wildlife can cause population level effects with implications for conservation science, policy and practice. Social learning and animal culture can generate resilience in populations through the spread of adaptive behaviour but may also generate vulnerabilities. Distilling comprehensive management advice in this field remains challenging. Animal culture is important for defining 'units to conserve', managing human-wildlife interactions, reintroductions or translocations, and influences evolutionary change. However, the population level effects of cultural processes remain poorly understood. Given the breadth of issues for which cultural processes inform conservation, it is timely to consider the underlying processes in more detail. We consider the coupling of cultural processes and population dynamics to explore the conditions under which social learning can tip a declining population into growth. Simulations on a model system of two interacting cultural units are used to explore the tensions between the coupled dynamics of cultural and demographic processes. We show that even under a simple learning bias, the population level outcomes are complex. In concert with urgent targeted conservation action, we highlight the need to develop deeper process-based understanding in this field, to yield fundamental principles applicable to a broader range of encultured species.This article is part of the theme issue 'Animal culture: conservation in a changing world'.