Quantifying humpback whale song sequences to understand the dynamics of song exchange at the ocean basin scale

“…The sounds of humpback whales have been studied extensively in Alaska [121][122][123], off the eastern USA [124], at low latitudes [125][126][127][128][129], off eastern Australia [130][131][132][133][134][135][136] and off Antarctica [137].…”

Section: Megaptera Novaeangliae-humpback Whalementioning

confidence: 99%

Review of Underwater and In-Air Sounds Emitted by Australian and Antarctic Marine Mammals

et al. 2017

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The study of marine soundscapes is a growing field of research. Recording hardware is becoming more accessible; there are a number of off-the-shelf autonomous recorders that can be deployed for months at a time; software analysis tools exist as shareware; raw or preprocessed recordings are freely and publicly available. However, what is missing are catalogues of commonly recorded sounds. Sounds related to geophysical events (e.g. earthquakes) and weather (e.g. wind and precipitation), to human activities (e.g. ships) and to marine animals (e.g. crustaceans, fish and marine mammals) commonly occur. Marine mammals are distributed throughout Australia's oceans and significantly contribute to the underwater soundscape. However, due to a lack of concurrent visual and passive acoustic observations, it is often not known which species produces which sounds. To aid in the analysis of Australian and Antarctic marine soundscape recordings, a literature review of the sounds made by marine mammals was undertaken. Frequency, duration and source level measurements are summarised and tabulated. In addition to the literature review, new marine mammal data are presented and include recordings from Australia of Omura's whales (Balaenoptera omurai), dwarf sperm whales (Kogia sima), common dolphins (Delphinus delphis), short-finned pilot whales (Globicephala macrorhynchus), long-finned pilot whales (G. melas), Fraser's dolphins (Lagenodelphis hosei), false killer whales (Pseudorca crassidens), striped dolphins (Stenella coeruleoalba) and spinner dolphins (S. longirostris), as well as the whistles and burst-pulse sounds of Australian pygmy killer whales (Feresa attenuata). To date, this is the most comprehensive acoustic summary for marine mammal species in Australian waters.

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“…Dialect differences have been used to indicate structure in many bird species such as mountain white-crowned sparrows (Zonotrichia leucophrys oriantha; MacDougall-Shackleton and MacDougallShackleton, 2001) and yellow-naped amazon parrots (Amazona auropalliata and A. ochrocephala; Wright and Wilkinson, 2001) as well as a diverse array of other taxa including rock hyraxes (Procavia capensis; Kershenbaum et al, 2012), sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus; Whitehead et al, 1998), fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus; Delarue et al, 2009), killer whales (Orcinus orca; Ford, 1991), and humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae; Garland et al, 2013). For example, killer whales display subtle differences in the structure of calls among different matrilines within a pod (Miller and Bain, 2000), while differences in the use and structure of calls exist among pods to produce a group-specific dialect (Ford, 1991).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas) vocalizations and call classification from the eastern Beaufort Sea population

Garland

Castellote

Berchok

2015

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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Beluga whales, Delphinapterus leucas, have a graded call system; call types exist on a continuum making classification challenging. A description of vocalizations from the eastern Beaufort Sea beluga population during its spring migration are presented here, using both a non-parametric classification tree analysis (CART), and a Random Forest analysis. Twelve frequency and duration measurements were made on 1019 calls recorded over 14 days off Icy Cape, Alaska, resulting in 34 identifiable call types with 83% agreement in classification for both CART and Random Forest analyses. This high level of agreement in classification, with an initial subjective classification of calls into 36 categories, demonstrates that the methods applied here provide a quantitative analysis of a graded call dataset. Further, as calls cannot be attributed to individuals using single sensor passive acoustic monitoring efforts, these methods provide a comprehensive analysis of data where the influence of pseudo-replication of calls from individuals is unknown. This study is the first to describe the vocal repertoire of a beluga population using a robust and repeatable methodology. A baseline eastern Beaufort Sea beluga population repertoire is presented here, against which the call repertoire of other seasonally sympatric Alaskan beluga populations can be compared.

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Quantifying humpback whale song sequences to understand the dynamics of song exchange at the ocean basin scale

Cited by 54 publications

References 32 publications

The marine soundscape of the Perth Canyon

The marine soundscape of the Perth Canyon

Review of Underwater and In-Air Sounds Emitted by Australian and Antarctic Marine Mammals

Beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas) vocalizations and call classification from the eastern Beaufort Sea population

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