GLORIA

GEOMAR Library Ocean Research Information Access

feed icon rss

Your email was sent successfully. Check your inbox.

An error occurred while sending the email. Please try again.

Proceed reservation?

Export
  • 1
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © Acoustical Society of America, 2010. This article is posted here by permission of Acoustical Society of America for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 127 (2010): 560-567, doi:10.1121/1.3257203.
    Description: Estimating the range at which harbor porpoises can detect prey items and environmental objects is integral to understanding their biosonar. Understanding the ranges at which they can use echolocation to detect and avoid obstacles is particularly important for strategies to reduce bycatch. Transmission loss (TL) during acoustic propagation is an important determinant of those detection ranges, and it also influences animal detection functions used in passive acoustic monitoring. However, common assumptions regarding TL have rarely been tested. Here, TL of synthetic porpoise clicks was measured in porpoise habitats in Canada and Denmark, and field data were compared with spherical spreading law and ray-trace (Bellhop) model predictions. Both models matched mean observations quite well in most cases, indicating that a spherical spreading law can usually provide an accurate first-order estimate of TL for porpoise sounds in porpoise habitat. However, TL varied significantly (±10 dB) between sites and over time in response to variability in seafloor characteristics, sound-speed profiles, and other short-timescale environmental fluctuations. Such variability should be taken into account in estimates of the ranges at which porpoises can communicate acoustically, detect echolocation targets, and be detected via passive acoustic monitoring.
    Description: Field data collection was partially supported by a Student Research Award from the WHOI Ocean Life Institute (Grant No. 25051351). P.T.M. and M.H. were funded by Steno and frame grants from the Danish Natural Science Foundation.
    Keywords: Bioacoustics ; Biocommunications ; Mechanoception ; Underwater acoustic propagation ; Zoology
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Format: application/pdf
    Location Call Number Limitation Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 2
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © Inter-Research, 2009. This article is posted here by permission of Inter-Research for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Marine Ecology Progress Series 395 (2009): 55-73, doi:10.3354/meps08255.
    Description: Many marine animals use sound passively or actively for communication, foraging, predator avoidance, navigation, and to sense their environment. The advent of acoustic recording tags has allowed biologists to get the on-animal perspective of the sonic environment and, in combination with movement sensors, to relate sounds to the activities of the tagged animal. These powerful tools have led to a wide range of insights into the behaviour of marine animals and have opened new opportunities for studying the ways they interact with their environment. Acoustic tags demand new analysis methods and careful experimental design to optimize the consistency between research objectives and the realistic performance of the tags. Technical details to consider are the suitability of the tag attachment to a given species, the accuracy of the tag sensors, and the recording and attachment duration of the tag. Here we consider the achievements, potential, and limitations of acoustic recording tags in studying the behaviour, habitat use and sensory ecology of marine mammals, the taxon to which this technology has been most often applied. We examine the application of acoustic tags to studies of vocal behaviour, foraging ecology, acoustic tracking, and the effects of noise to assess both the breadth of applications and the specific issues that arise in each.
    Description: Funding for the review came from the National Oceanographic Partnership Program. The DTAG work described here has been supported by the Mineral Management Service, Office of Naval Research, Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program, Navy N45, Packard Foundation and others.
    Keywords: Acoustics ; Tag ; Marine mammal ; Foraging ; Tracking ; Behaviour ; Effects of noise
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Format: application/pdf
    Location Call Number Limitation Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 3
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © Inter-Research, 2009. This article is posted here by permission of Inter-Research for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Marine Ecology Progress Series 395 (2009): 161-175, doi:10.3354/meps08204.
    Description: Increasing numbers and speeds of vessels in areas with populations of cetaceans may have the cumulative effect of reducing habitat quality by increasing the underwater noise level. Here, we first use digital acoustic tags to demonstrate that free-ranging delphinids in a coastal deep-water habitat are subjected to varying and occasionally intense levels of vessel noise. Vessel noise and sound propagation measurements from a shallow-water habitat are then used to model the potential impact of high sound levels from small vessels on delphinid communication in both shallow and deep habitats, with bottlenose dolphins Tursiops sp. and short-finned pilot whales Globicephala macrorhynchus as model organisms. We find that small vessels travelling at 5 knots in shallow water can reduce the communication range of bottlenose dolphins within 50 m by 26%. Pilot whales in a quieter deep-water habitat could suffer a reduction in their communication range of 58% caused by a vessel at similar range and speed. Increased cavitation noise at higher speeds drastically increases the impact on the communication range. Gear shifts generate high-level transient sounds (peak– peak source levels of up to 200 dB re 1 µPa) that may be audible over many kilometres and may disturb close-range animals. We conclude that noise from small vessels can significantly mask acoustically mediated communication in delphinids and contribute to the documented negative impacts on animal fitness.
    Description: This work was supported by the PhD School of Aquatic Sciences (SOAS), Aarhus University, DK, WWF Verdensnaturfonden and Aase & Ejnar Danielsens Foundation, the Siemens Foundation, a research agreement between La Laguna University and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the Faculty of Science at the University of Aarhus, Denmark, and the Danish Natural Science Foundation via a Steno scholarship and frame grants to P.T.M. M.J. and N.A. were funded by the National Oceanographic Partnership Program.
    Keywords: Acoustic communication ; Vessel noise ; Masking ; Bottlenose dolphins ; Pilot whales ; Recreational vessels ; Whale watching
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Format: application/pdf
    Location Call Number Limitation Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 4
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: © The Author(s), 2011. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences 279 (2012): 1041-1050, doi:10.1098/rspb.2011.2088.
    Description: Decompression sickness (DCS; ‘the bends’) is a disease associated with gas uptake at pressure. The basic pathology and cause are relatively well known to human divers. Breath-hold diving marine mammals were thought to be relatively immune to DCS owing to multiple anatomical, physiological and behavioural adaptations that reduce nitrogen gas (N2) loading during dives. However, recent observations have shown that gas bubbles may form and tissue injury may occur in marine mammals under certain circumstances. Gas kinetic models based on measured time-depth profiles further suggest the potential occurrence of high blood and tissue N2 tensions. We review evidence for gas-bubble incidence in marine mammal tissues and discuss the theory behind gas loading and bubble formation. We suggest that diving mammals vary their physiological responses according to multiple stressors, and that the perspective on marine mammal diving physiology should change from simply minimizing N2 loading to management of the N2 load. This suggests several avenues for further study, ranging from the effects of gas bubbles at molecular, cellular and organ function levels, to comparative studies relating the presence/absence of gas bubbles to diving behaviour. Technological advances in imaging and remote instrumentation are likely to advance this field in coming years.
    Description: This paper and the workshop it stemmed from were funded by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Marine Mammal Centre.
    Keywords: Diving physiology ; Marine mammals ; Gas bubbles ; Embolism ; Decompression sickness
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Format: application/pdf
    Location Call Number Limitation Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 5
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © Inter-Research, 2006. This article is posted here by permission of Inter-Research for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Marine Ecology Progress Series 309 (2006): 279-295, doi:10.3354/meps309279.
    Description: The demand for renewable energy has led to construction of offshore wind farms with high-power turbines, and many more wind farms are being planned for the shallow waters of the world’s marine habitats. The growth of offshore wind farms has raised concerns about their impact on the marine environment. Marine mammals use sound for foraging, orientation and communication and are therefore possibly susceptible to negative effects of man-made noise generated from constructing and operating large offshore wind turbines. This paper reviews the existing literature and assesses zones of impact from different noise-generating activities in conjunction with wind farms on 4 representative shallow-water species of marine mammals. Construction involves many types of activities that can generate high sound pressure levels, and pile-driving seems to be the noisiest of all. Both the literature and modeling show that pile-driving and other activities that generate intense impulses during construction are likely to disrupt the behavior of marine mammals at ranges of many kilometers, and that these activities have the potential to induce hearing impairment at close range. The reported noise levels from operating wind turbines are low, and are unlikely to impair hearing in marine mammals. The impact zones for marine mammals from operating wind turbines depend on the low-frequency hearing-abilities of the species in question, on sound-propagation conditions, and on the presence of other noise sources such as shipping. The noise impact on marine mammals is more severe during the construction of wind farms than during their operation.
    Description: This study was funded by Massachusetts Technology Collaborative grant # OWEC-05-02. M.W. was funded by the Carlsberg Foundation. The work of K.L. was partially supported by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation through the German Ministry for the Environment.
    Keywords: Marine mammal ; Wind turbine ; Pile-driving ; Underwater noise ; Impact zones ; Masking
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Format: application/pdf
    Location Call Number Limitation Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 6
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © Inter-Research, 2007. This article is posted here by permission of Inter-Research for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Aquatic Biology 1 (2007): 141-150, doi:10.3354/ab00014.
    Description: Squid play an important role in biomass turnover in marine ecosystems and constitute a food source for ~90% of all echolocating toothed whale species. Nonetheless, it has been hypothesized that the soft bodies of squid provide echoes too weak to be detected by toothed whale biosonars, and that only the few hard parts of the squid body may generate significant backscatter. We measured the acoustic backscatter from the common squid Loligo pealeii for signals similar to toothed whale echolocation clicks using an energy detector to mimic the mammalian auditory system. We show that the dorsal target strengths of L. pealeii with mantle lengths between 23 and 26 cm fall in the range from –38 to –44 dB, and that the pen, beak and lenses do not contribute significantly to the backscatter. Thus, the muscular mantle and fins of L. pealeii constitute a sufficient sonar target for individual biosonar detection by toothed whales at ranges between 25 and 325 m, depending on squid size, noise levels, click source levels, and orientation of the ensonified squid. While epipelagic squid must be fast and muscular to catch prey and avoid visual predators, it is hypothesized that some deep-water squid may have adopted passive acoustic crypsis, with a body of low muscle mass and low metabolism that will render them less conspicuous to echolocating predators.
    Description: This study was funded by the Oticon Foundation with additional support from Reson, and a Steno scholarship to P.T.M. from the Danish Natural Science Research Council. M.W. was funded by a PhD scholarship from the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Aarhus University and the PhD School SOAS. R.T.H. acknowledges partial funding from NOAA/NURP grant UAF-05-0133.
    Keywords: Squid ; Predator ; Prey ; Echolocation ; Toothed whale ; Target strength
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Format: application/pdf
    Location Call Number Limitation Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 7
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: © The Author(s), 2011. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 6 (2011): e28353, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0028353.
    Description: Simultaneous high resolution sampling of predator behavior and habitat characteristics is often difficult to achieve despite its importance in understanding the foraging decisions and habitat use of predators. Here we tap into the biosonar system of Blainville's beaked whales, Mesoplodon densirostris, using sound and orientation recording tags to uncover prey-finding cues available to echolocating predators in the deep-sea. Echolocation sounds indicate where whales search and encounter prey, as well as the altitude of whales above the sea-floor and the density of organisms around them, providing a link between foraging activity and the bio-physical environment. Tagged whales (n = 9) hunted exclusively at depth, investing most of their search time either in the lower part of the deep scattering layer (DSL) or near the sea-floor with little diel change. At least 43% (420/974) of recorded prey-capture attempts were performed within the benthic boundary layer despite a wide range of dive depths, and many dives included both meso- and bentho-pelagic foraging. Blainville's beaked whales only initiate searching when already deep in the descent and encounter prey suitable for capture within 2 min of the start of echolocation, suggesting that these whales are accessing prey in reliable vertical strata. Moreover, these prey resources are sufficiently dense to feed the animals in what is effectively four hours of hunting per day enabling a strategy in which long dives to exploit numerous deep-prey with low nutritional value require protracted recovery periods (average 1.5 h) between dives. This apparent searching efficiency maybe aided by inhabiting steep undersea slopes with access to both the DSL and the sea-floor over small spatial scales. Aggregations of prey in these biotopes are located using biosonar-derived landmarks and represent stable and abundant resources for Blainville's beaked whales in the otherwise food-limited deep-ocean.
    Description: The work was funded by the Office of Naval Research and the National Ocean Partnership Program (US), by a consortium consisting of the Canary Islands Government, the Spanish Ministry of Environment and the Spanish Ministry of Defense, and by the European environmental funding LIFE-INDEMARES program for the inventory and designation of the Natura 2000 network in marine areas of the Spanish territory, headed by Fundacion Biodiversidad, with additional support from the Cabildo Insular of El Hierro. PA is currently supported by the National Research Project: Cetacean, Oceanography and Biodiversity from La Palma and El Hierro (CGL2009-13112) of the Spanish Ministry of Science and NAS by a Marie Curie fellowship from the 7th European Frame Program. MJ was supported by grants from the Strategic Environmental Research Development Program and from the National Ocean Partnership Program. PTM was supported by frame grants from the National Danish Science Foundation.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Format: application/pdf
    Location Call Number Limitation Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 8
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: © The Author(s), 2012. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Public Library of Science, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0052072.
    Description: The low-frequency, powerful vocalizations of blue and fin whales may potentially be detected by conspecifics across entire ocean basins. In contrast, humpback and bowhead whales produce equally powerful, but more complex broadband vocalizations composed of higher frequencies that suffer from higher attenuation. Here we evaluate the active space of high frequency song notes of bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus) in Western Greenland using measurements of song source levels and ambient noise. Four independent, GPS-synchronized hydrophones were deployed through holes in the ice to localize vocalizing bowhead whales, estimate source levels and measure ambient noise. The song had a mean apparent source level of 185±2 dB rms re 1 µPa @ 1 m and a high mean centroid frequency of 444±48 Hz. Using measured ambient noise levels in the area and Arctic sound spreading models, the estimated active space of these song notes is between 40 and 130 km, an order of magnitude smaller than the estimated active space of low frequency blue and fin whale songs produced at similar source levels and for similar noise conditions. We propose that bowhead whales spatially compensate for their smaller communication range through mating aggregations that co-evolved with broadband song to form a complex and dynamic acoustically mediated sexual display.
    Description: This work was funded by the Oticon Foundation (grant # 08-3469 to Arctic Station, OT). OT and MC were additionally funded by AP Møller og Hustru Chastine Mc-Kinney Møllers Fond til almene Formaal, MS by a PhD scholarship from the Oticon Foundation, FHJ by a Danish Council for Independent Research, Natural Sciences post-doctoral grant, SEP by a grant from the U.S. Office of Naval Research, and PTM by frame grants from the Danish Natural Science Research Council.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Format: application/pdf
    Location Call Number Limitation Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 9
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © Acoustical Society of America, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of Acoustical Society of America for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 131 (2012): 582-592, doi:10.1121/1.3662067.
    Description: Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops sp.) depend on frequency-modulated whistles for many aspects of their social behavior, including group cohesion and recognition of familiar individuals. Vocalization amplitude and frequency influences communication range and may be shaped by many ecological and physiological factors including energetic costs. Here, a calibrated GPS-synchronized hydrophone array was used to record the whistles of bottlenose dolphins in a tropical shallow-water environment with high ambient noise levels. Acoustic localization techniques were used to estimate the source levels and energy content of individual whistles. Bottlenose dolphins produced whistles with mean source levels of 146.7±6.2 dB re. 1 μPa(RMS). These were lower than source levels estimated for a population inhabiting the quieter Moray Firth, indicating that dolphins do not necessarily compensate for the high noise levels found in noisy tropical habitats by increasing their source level. Combined with measured transmission loss and noise levels, these source levels provided estimated median communication ranges of 750 m and maximum communication ranges up to 5740 m. Whistles contained less than 17 mJ of acoustic energy, showing that the energetic cost of whistling is small compared to the high metabolic rate of these aquatic mammals, and unlikely to limit the vocal activity of toothed whales.
    Description: This study received support from the Danish Ph.D. School of Aquatic Sciences (SOAS), Aarhus University, DK, WWF Verdensnaturfonden and Aase & Ejnar Danielsens Foundation, the Siemens Foundation, the Faculty of Science at the University of Aarhus, DK, and the Danish Natural Science Foundation via a Steno scholarship and a logistics grant to PTM.
    Keywords: Acoustic arrays ; Acoustic noise ; Acoustic radiators ; Acoustic variables measurement ; Acoustic wave transmission ; Biocommunications ; Global Positioning System ; Hydrophones ; Underwater sound
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Format: application/pdf
    Location Call Number Limitation Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 10
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: © The Author(s), 2013. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS ONE 8 (2013): e59284, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0059284.
    Description: Toothed whales (Cetacea, odontoceti) use biosonar to navigate their environment and to find and catch prey. All studied toothed whale species have evolved highly directional, high-amplitude ultrasonic clicks suited for long-range echolocation of prey in open water. Little is known about the biosonar signals of toothed whale species inhabiting freshwater habitats such as endangered river dolphins. To address the evolutionary pressures shaping the echolocation signal parameters of non-marine toothed whales, we investigated the biosonar source parameters of Ganges river dolphins (Platanista gangetica gangetica) and Irrawaddy dolphins (Orcaella brevirostris) within the river systems of the Sundarban mangrove forest. Both Ganges and Irrawaddy dolphins produced echolocation clicks with a high repetition rate and low source level compared to marine species. Irrawaddy dolphins, inhabiting coastal and riverine habitats, produced a mean source level of 195 dB (max 203 dB) re 1 µPapp whereas Ganges river dolphins, living exclusively upriver, produced a mean source level of 184 dB (max 191) re 1 µPapp. These source levels are 1–2 orders of magnitude lower than those of similar sized marine delphinids and may reflect an adaptation to a shallow, acoustically complex freshwater habitat with high reverberation and acoustic clutter. The centroid frequency of Ganges river dolphin clicks are an octave lower than predicted from scaling, but with an estimated beamwidth comparable to that of porpoises. The unique bony maxillary crests found in the Platanista forehead may help achieve a higher directionality than expected using clicks nearly an octave lower than similar sized odontocetes.
    Description: This study was made possible through the logistical and field support of the Bangladesh Cetacean Diversity Project of the Wildlife Conservation Society, and funded by frame grants from the Danish Natural Science Foundation to PTM. FHJ was supported by the PhD School of Aquatic Sciences, Denmark, and is currently funded by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Danish Council for Independent Research | Natural Sciences. VMJ was supported by a fellowship of the Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin. PTM was supported by frame grants from the Danish Natural Science Foundation.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Format: application/pdf
    Location Call Number Limitation Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
Close ⊗
This website uses cookies and the analysis tool Matomo. More information can be found here...