Signature information in the song of the humpback whale

Hafner, Gordon W.; Hamilton, Cheryl; Steiner, William W. M.; Thompson, Thomas J.; Winn, Howard E.

doi:10.1121/1.383072

Cited by 42 publications

(30 citation statements)

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“…There have also been studies of the characteristics of the song units, quantifying frequency characteristics and duration of the sounds (e.g., Hafner et al, 1979;Helweg et al, 1998;MacKnight et al, 2001). Frequency and temporal characteristics of migrating humpback whale social sounds have also been described previously by Dunlop et al (2007), who found 34 discrete social sound types ranging in frequency from 40 Hz to 3 kHz, and in duration from 0.1 to 3.5 s. These sounds were recorded from humpback whales migrating along the east coast of Australia.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Source levels of social sounds in migrating humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae)

Dunlop

Cato

Noad

et al. 2013

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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The source level of an animal sound is important in communication, since it affects the distance over which the sound is audible. Several measurements of source levels of whale sounds have been reported, but the accuracy of many is limited because the distance to the source and the acoustic transmission loss were estimated rather than measured. This paper presents measurements of source levels of social sounds (surface-generated and vocal sounds) of humpback whales from a sample of 998 sounds recorded from 49 migrating humpback whale groups. Sources were localized using a wide baseline five hydrophone array and transmission loss was measured for the site. Social vocalization source levels were found to range from 123 to 183 dB re 1 lPa @ 1 m with a median of 158 dB re 1 lPa @ 1 m. Source levels of surface-generated social sounds ("breaches" and "slaps") were narrower in range (133 to 171 dB re 1 lPa @ 1 m) but slightly higher in level (median of 162 dB re 1 lPa @ 1 m) compared to vocalizations. The data suggest that group composition has an effect on group vocalization source levels in that singletons and mother-calf-singing escort groups tend to vocalize at higher levels compared to other group compositions.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Source levels of social sounds in migrating humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae)

Dunlop

Cato

Noad

et al. 2013

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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“…Using stepwise DFA, calls were classified to the correct individual and age class well above the level of classi fication expected by random chance. To our knowledge, this is the first quantitative assessment of acoustic variation among individuals using a stereotyped social call produced throughout the year by all individuals (Parks et al 2011) and represents only the second such ana lysis of individuality in a stereotyped call of any mysticete whale (Hafner et al 1979). As in studies of terrestrial mammals (Reby et al 1998, Gamba et al 2012), a combination of measurements from the fundamental frequency and the formants of the calls were effective for discrimination among individuals and groups.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 78%

“…This applies to all pinniped species that have been tested (Insley et al 2003): sub-Antarctic fur seals Arctocephalus tropicalis (Charrier & Harcourt 2006), Australian sea lions Neophoca cinerea (Gwilliam et al 2008), Weddell seals Leptonychotes weddellii (Van Opzeeland et al 2012) and several cetacean species including humpback whales Megaptera novaeangliae (Hafner et al 1979), killer whales Orcinus orca (Nousek et al 2006, Nichols et al 2010, Kremers et al 2012, sperm whales Physeter macrocephalus (Antunes et al 2011), and bottlenose dolphins Tursiops truncatus (Caldwell & Caldwell 1965, Sayigh et al 2007. Signature whistles of bottlenose dolphins are perhaps the most well-known of these examples, partially due to the dramatic differences in fundamental frequency contours among individuals (Janik & Sayigh 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Typically, however, acoustic differences among individuals are much more subtle and require several acoustic measurements to achieve statistical discrimination. Despite the precedent for vocal individuality within marine mammals, to our knowledge there has only been a single published quantitative assessment of individual distinctiveness in calls of any mysticete whale: an analysis conducted using songs of humpback whales recorded from adult males (Hafner et al 1979).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Calls of North Atlantic right whales Eubalaena glacialis contain information on individual identity and age class

McCordic¹,

Root‐Gutteridge²,

Cusano³

et al. 2016

Endang. Species. Res.

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Passive acoustic monitoring is a powerful tool that allows remote detection of marine mammals through their vocalizations. While call detection provides information on species presence, additional information may be contained within the vocalizations that could provide more information regarding the demographics and/or number of individuals in a particular area based on passive acoustic detections. The North Atlantic right whale Eubalaena glacialis produces a stereotyped upswept call, termed the upcall, that is thought to function as a long-distance contact call in this species. As such, the call is likely to contain cues providing information about the individual producing it. The goal of this study was to test whether the right whale upcall could potentially encode information related to the identity and age of the caller. Using upcalls recorded from 14 known individuals through non-invasive suction cup archival acoustic tags, we demonstrate that the upcall does contain sufficient information to discriminate individual identity and age class, with average classification levels of 72.6 and 86.1%, respectively. Parameters measured from the fundamental frequency, duration, and formant structure were most important for discrimination among individuals. This study is the first step in demonstrating the feasibility of obtaining additional data from passive acoustic monitoring to aid in the conservation efforts for this highly endangered species.

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“…Vessel noise has the potential to interfere with the complex vocal behavior of humpback whales, and thus could indirectly affect their population dynamics. Humpbacks produce a wide variety of vocalizations in many social contexts, which include the famous mating "songs" in their winter breeding grounds [4][5][6][7][8][9][10] as well as specialized "feeding calls" in their summer feeding grounds [11][12][13][14] that could serve as long-range assembly calls [2], likely coordinates group-feeding behavior and/or manipulate their prey (small schooling fish, [32]). Singing humpbacks are also known to modify their vocal behavior as a direct consequence of the vocal behavior of other humpbacks [5,8,15], most readily evidenced in the convergence of song acoustic structure among populations of males across each breeding season.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Applicability of Information Theory to the Quantification of Responses to Anthropogenic Noise by Southeast Alaskan Humpback Whales

Doyle

McCowan

Hanser

et al. 2008

Entropy

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Abstract:We assess the effectiveness of applying information theory to the characterization and quantification of the affects of anthropogenic vessel noise on humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) vocal behavior in and around Glacier Bay, Alaska. Vessel noise has the potential to interfere with the complex vocal behavior of these humpback whales which could have direct consequences on their feeding behavior and thus ultimately on their health and reproduction. Humpback whale feeding calls recorded during conditions of high vessel-generated noise and lower levels of background noise are compared for differences in acoustic structure, use, and organization using information theoretic measures. We apply information theory in a self-referential manner (i.e., orders of entropy) to quantify the changes in signaling behavior. We then compare this with the reduction in channel capacity due to noise in Glacier Bay itself treating it as a (Gaussian) noisy channel. We find that high vessel noise is associated with an increase in the rate and repetitiveness of sequential use of feeding call types in our averaged sample of humpback OPEN ACCESSEntropy 2008, 10 34 whale vocalizations, indicating that vessel noise may be modifying the patterns of use of feeding calls by the endangered humpback whales in Southeast Alaska. The information theoretic approach suggested herein can make a reliable quantitative measure of such relationships and may also be adapted for wider application to many species where environmental noise is thought to be a problem. Keywords

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Signature information in the song of the humpback whale

Cited by 42 publications

References 0 publications

Source levels of social sounds in migrating humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae)

Source levels of social sounds in migrating humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae)

Calls of North Atlantic right whales Eubalaena glacialis contain information on individual identity and age class

Applicability of Information Theory to the Quantification of Responses to Anthropogenic Noise by Southeast Alaskan Humpback Whales

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