Whale Biologist Becomes Software Dynamo

Computer programmers interested in organizing information from unruly databases could learn a thing or two from Hal Whitehead. Whitehead, a Canadian biologist who studies sperm whales, recently developed a tool, dubbed SOCPROG, that enables fellow researchers to sort through dozens of enormous databases for information about the animals' social behaviors.

Whitehead wrote the program in MATLAB, a technical computing language designed to handle large data sets. By organizing and analyzing data on behaviors such as surfacing patterns, tail slapping, and vocalizations, researchers use the software to establish rough sketches of social structure within a particular species. They then randomize the data to find patterns and salient details linking individual animals to one another.

If, for instance, data show that one whale always surfaces first, scientists can assume that this whale is the leader. In another scenario, if the data indicate a smaller whale is consistently seen following a larger female, scientists can assume this is a mother/calf pair.

Since Whitehead released the program earlier this year, students in his post-doctoral program at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, have used it to organize data from studies involving six different kinds of whales. Other researchers are catching on, too. The program is available for free on Whitehead's personal Web site (http://is.dal.ca/~whitelab/index.htm), and Whitehead says that more than 20 scientists around the world have downloaded it to organize their data as well.

Robin Beard researches killer whales off the coast of Hawaii for the Pacific Whale Foundation, and uses SOCPROG to coordinate and analyze her research. Beard says the program enables her to dig deeper into her data, uncovering association and behavioral information she's never had before. This information has enabled Beard to publish papers describing a subspecies of killer whales that eat mammals, unlike their fish-eating counterparts.

"The value of the program is that it allows people who don't have a programming background to do very sophisticated analyses of association patterns relatively easily," she says. "If I had to do the same type of analyses with some of the commercially available programs, they would be superficial analyses at best."

Go To Page: 1

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic