Understanding the rich social lives of animals benefits international conservation efforts Animal culture, defined as “information or behavior—shared within a community—which is acquired from conspecifics through some form of social learning” (1), can have important consequences for the survival and reproduction of individuals, social groups, and potentially, entire populations (1, 2). Yet, until recently, conservation strategies and policies have focused primarily on broad demographic responses and the preservation of genetically defined, evolutionarily significant units. A burgeoning body of evidence on cultural transmission and other aspects of sociality (3) is now affording critical insights into what should be conserved (going beyond the protection of genetic diversity, to consider adaptive aspects of phenotypic variation), and why specific conservation programs succeed (e.g., through facilitating the resilience of cultural diversity) while others fail (e.g., by neglecting key repositories of socially transmitted knowledge). Here, we highlight how international legal instruments, such as the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), can facilitate smart, targeted conservation of a wide range of taxa, by explicitly considering aspects of their sociality and cultures.

中文翻译：

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动物文化对保护很重要

了解动物丰富的社会生活有利于国际保护工作 动物文化，定义为“在社区内共享的信息或行为——通过某种形式的社会学习从同种动物获得”（1），可以对生存和个体、社会群体和潜在的整个人口的繁殖 (1, 2)。然而，直到最近，保护战略和政策主要集中在广泛的人口反应和保护遗传定义的、具有进化意义的单位。越来越多的关于文化传播和社会性其他方面的证据 (3) 现在为应该保护的内容提供了重要的见解（超越了对遗传多样性的保护，考虑了表型变异的适应性方面），以及为什么特定的保护计划会成功（例如，通过促进文化多样性的复原力）而其他计划会失败（例如，通过忽略社会传播知识的关键存储库）。在这里，我们强调了国际法律文书，例如《保护野生动物迁徙物种公约》（CMS），如何通过明确考虑其社会性和文化的各个方面来促进对广泛的分类群进行智能、有针对性的保护。