Bottlenose Dolphins (&lt;I&gt;Tursiops truncatus&lt;/I&gt;) Increase Number of Whistles When Feeding

Acevedo‐Gutiérrez, Alejandro; Stienessen, Sarah

doi:10.1578/am.30.3.2004.357

Cited by 56 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 23 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Dusky porpoises produce greater numbers of characteristic calls or a greater number of total calls in order to recruit individuals to feeding events [25]. The whistles of bottlenose dolphins are also more numerous among feeding groups than non-feeding groups [1]. The large increase in the number of whistles during Pre-feeding recorded in our study might reflect the timing of feeding events, suggesting a demand for food.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 68%

Increased Number of Whistles of Bottlenose Dolphins, Tursiops truncatus, Arising from Interaction with People

Akiyama

Ohta

2007

The Journal of Veterinary Medical Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

ABSTRACT. The acoustic mode is the most reasonable means for social animals such as dolphins to maintain contact in the underwater habitat, and has been developed since they moved to the sea. This study investigates variations in dolphin vocalizations under the following conditions in a captive environment: 1) before feeding (Pre-feeding), 2) during feeding (Feeding), 3) during free time without the presence of people (Free), 4) during interaction with people located upon a float (Float), 5) during interaction with people in the water (Water). During the experiments, a total of 2642 whistles were extracted from sonogram data using a spectrogram. About 44% of the total whistles were observed during Pre-feeding (1171/2642), and the number recorded during Free, when people were absent, was the smallest. The acoustic contours of dolphin whistles differed in different situations: convex, wave, and trill whistles were made repeatedly during Pre-feeding, thereby being more common at this time than at other times. The situation of Feeding saw an increased number of Upsweeps, which might be related to the use of echolocation. The lower frequencies were recorded during Pre-feeding, reflecting the emotion related to the dolphin's hunger. The results of this study indicate that dolphins increase their vocalization during interaction with people, suggesting that interactions with dolphins provide an effective treatment for human health problems, which is discussed with a reference article in this study. Vocal data obtained during contact with humans might serve as an important index for the dolphinassisted therapy. KEY WORDS: bottlenose dolphin, captive environment, dolphin-human interaction, vocalization.J. Vet. Med. Sci. 69(2): 165-170 2007 Bottlenose dolphins, Tursiops truncatus, are kept in many aquaria and marine facilities throughout the world. They have a wide distribution and inhabit almost every ocean. The brain of the bottlenose dolphin is heavier than that of the human brain, and the bottlenose dolphin's brain index {brain weight/(body size) 2/3 }, which is the ratio of brain size to body size, is the second-largest (0.64) of all mammals after humans (0.89); this value is more than twice that of chimpanzees (0.30) [16]. Dolphins have developed a complex social structure [8] and make use of tools [13]. Several experiments that target cognitive mechanisms have demonstrated dolphins' capabilities in terms of learning, memory, and communicative language [11].Most marine-derived dolphins form communities, called pods, and are considered to mutually communicate. They often use characteristic vocalizations for communication rather than touch and breaching [24]. The dolphin has developed a means of sound communication that can carry a wide range and send myriad messages rapidly through water. Dolphins gather information through hearing. Their sophisticated communication system improves their efficiency in searching for food, reproduction, and protection; thereby enhancing their adaptation to the environment [6].Dolphin...

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 68%

Increased Number of Whistles of Bottlenose Dolphins, Tursiops truncatus, Arising from Interaction with People

Akiyama

Ohta

2007

The Journal of Veterinary Medical Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Adjusting the data presented by Jones & Sayigh (2002), it is clear that their rates are on the same order of magnitude. Acevedo-Gutiérrez & Stienessen (2004) obtained similar whistling rates for "non-feeding" dolphins (0.4) in Costa Rica. "Feeding" dolphins, on the other hand, emitted whistles at the higher rate of 2.7 per min per dolphin, sometimes in the presence of competing sharks.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 67%

“…Activity and whistle abundance are often related (Jones & Sayigh, 2002;Acevedo-Gutiérrez & Stienessen, 2004;Cook et al, 2004). Traveling dolphins were quieter in general, and whistling rates increased, especially in those activities involving excited predation or socializing.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Cook et al (2004) also recently reported that whistle rates increase with group size in the Sarasota, Florida, bottlenose dolphin population and that whistles were more frequent in socializing episodes than in traveling. Acevedo-Gutiérrez & Stienessen (2004) studied the whistles of bottlenose dolphins in Costa Rica and, in a different perspective, proposed that group size increased with the whistling of feeding animals, especially when competing silky sharks were present.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Whistles of Bottlenose Dolphins (<I>Tursiops truncatus</I>) in the Sado Estuary, Portugal: Characteristics, Production Rates, and Long-Term Contour Stability

Santos¹,

Louro²,

Couchinho³

et al. 2005

aquatic mammals

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study focuses on the whistle characteristics and production patterns of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) resident in the Sado Estuary, Portugal. Recordings and observations were conducted inside the estuary and in adjacent coastal waters using single hydrophones between 1987 and 2000. In the groups sampled, the mean number of whistles emitted per minute per animal was 0.28. The acoustic characteristics of a sample of 735 whistles were measured and compared with data from other Tursiops populations, showing that, in a pattern of overall similarity, the whistles recorded in the Sado are relatively long and the frequency range used is relatively wide. Mean peak frequency was 9.2 kHz. About 30% of the whistles were stereotyped, and remarkable stability was found in several contours over a 12-year period. No relation was found between dolphin group size and whistle rate, suggesting some restriction in production; and no relation was found between dolphin group size and the emission of different contours. Significant variation was found between episodes of simple travel and more aroused activities in terms of the production of whistles in general and also of different whistle contours.

show abstract

“…Free-ranging bottlenose dolphins produce all three call types, with individual whistle characteristics including durations between 0.6 and 1.4 s, minimum frequencies between 5.4 and 8.5 kHz, maximum frequencies between 11.32 and 17.2 kHz, and 1.86 and 3.7 inflection points for a variety of populations ͑Acevedo- Gutiérrez and Stienessen, 2004;Oswald et al, 2003;Steiner, 1981;Wang et al, 1995͒. Bottlenose echolocation clicks have source levels of 228 dB re FIG.…”

Section: A Data Collection and Species Call Descriptionsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Gaussian mixture model classification of odontocetes in the Southern California Bight and the Gulf of California

Roch

Soldevilla

Burtenshaw

et al. 2007

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A method for the automatic classification of free-ranging delphinid vocalizations is presented. The vocalizations of short-beaked and long-beaked common ͑Delphinus delphis and Delphinus capensis͒, Pacific white-sided ͑Lagenorhynchus obliquidens͒, and bottlenose ͑Tursiops truncatus͒ dolphins were recorded in a pelagic environment of the Southern California Bight and the Gulf of California over a period of 4 years. Cepstral feature vectors are extracted from call data which contain simultaneous overlapping whistles, burst-pulses, and clicks from a single species. These features are grouped into multisecond segments. A portion of the data is used to train Gaussian mixture models of varying orders for each species. The remaining call data are used to test the performance of the models. Species are predicted based upon probabilistic measures of model similarity with test segment groups having durations between 1 and 25 s. For this data set, 256 mixture Gaussian mixture models and segments of at least 10 s of call data resulted in the best classification results. The classifier predicts the species of groups with 67%-75% accuracy depending upon the partitioning of the training and test data.

show abstract

Bottlenose Dolphins (<I>Tursiops truncatus</I>) Increase Number of Whistles When Feeding

Cited by 56 publications

References 23 publications

Increased Number of Whistles of Bottlenose Dolphins, Tursiops truncatus, Arising from Interaction with People

Increased Number of Whistles of Bottlenose Dolphins, Tursiops truncatus, Arising from Interaction with People

Whistles of Bottlenose Dolphins (<I>Tursiops truncatus</I>) in the Sado Estuary, Portugal: Characteristics, Production Rates, and Long-Term Contour Stability

Gaussian mixture model classification of odontocetes in the Southern California Bight and the Gulf of California

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About