TY - JOUR
T1 - Vocalizations produced by southern right whale (Eubalaena australis) mother-calf pairs in a calving ground off Brazil
AU - Dombroski, Julia R.G.
AU - Parks, Susan E.
AU - Groch, Karina R.
AU - Flores, Paulo A.C.
AU - Sousa-Lima, Renata S.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Acoustical Society of America.
PY - 2016/9/1
Y1 - 2016/9/1
N2 - Aiming to gather information on southern right whale (Eubalaena australis) mother-calf pairs' vocal behavior, archival acoustic recorders were deployed at a calving area off Brazil. Manual inspection of spectrograms revealed seven call classes: upcall, downcall, down-upcall, tonal variable, tonal constant, hybrid, and pulsive calls, which are consistent with those previously described for this species in Argentina. Gunshots and warbles, vocalizations described from other right whale species, were not detected. Mean values of start, end, maximum, minimum and peak frequencies, frequency bandwidth and duration were calculated for each call class. Start and end frequencies, frequency bandwidth and duration of upcalls recorded off Brazil were compared to those from other right whale populations and species. Only mean duration of upcalls from Brazil were significantly different from upcalls from all other populations. Differences in call duration may be driven by differences in demographic factors or background noise features among study areas. The repertoire characterization presented in this study will contribute to increase the utility of passive acoustic monitoring as a tool for conservation and research of southern right whales off Brazil as it provides important baseline information on the vocal behavior of this species.
AB - Aiming to gather information on southern right whale (Eubalaena australis) mother-calf pairs' vocal behavior, archival acoustic recorders were deployed at a calving area off Brazil. Manual inspection of spectrograms revealed seven call classes: upcall, downcall, down-upcall, tonal variable, tonal constant, hybrid, and pulsive calls, which are consistent with those previously described for this species in Argentina. Gunshots and warbles, vocalizations described from other right whale species, were not detected. Mean values of start, end, maximum, minimum and peak frequencies, frequency bandwidth and duration were calculated for each call class. Start and end frequencies, frequency bandwidth and duration of upcalls recorded off Brazil were compared to those from other right whale populations and species. Only mean duration of upcalls from Brazil were significantly different from upcalls from all other populations. Differences in call duration may be driven by differences in demographic factors or background noise features among study areas. The repertoire characterization presented in this study will contribute to increase the utility of passive acoustic monitoring as a tool for conservation and research of southern right whales off Brazil as it provides important baseline information on the vocal behavior of this species.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84988733911&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84988733911&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1121/1.4962231
DO - 10.1121/1.4962231
M3 - Article
C2 - 27914379
AN - SCOPUS:84988733911
SN - 0001-4966
VL - 140
SP - 1850
EP - 1857
JO - Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
JF - Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
IS - 3
ER -