Animal cultures matter for conservation

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 individu-als, 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 transmis-sion 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 pro-grams succeed (e.g., through facilitating the resilience of cul-tural 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.