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Two new grey whale call types detected on bioacoustic tags

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 December 2016

Anaid López-Urbán ,
Aaron Thode ,
Carmen Bazúa Durán ,
Jorge UrbáN-R  and
Steven Swartz
Anaid López-Urbán
Affiliation:
Posgrado en Ciencias del Mar y Limnología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad Universitaria, Circuito Exterior S/N, Mexico
Aaron Thode*
Affiliation:
Marine Physical Laboratory, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, San Diego, CA 92093-0205, USA
Carmen Bazúa Durán
Affiliation:
Laboratorio de Acústica, Departamento de Física, Facultad de Ciencias, UNAM, Circuito Exterior s/n, Cd. Universitaria, 04510 México, D.F., México
Jorge UrbáN-R
Affiliation:
Departamento de Biología Marina, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California Sur, km 5.5 Carretera al Sur, Mezquitito, La Paz, B. C. S.23080, México
Steven Swartz
Affiliation:
Laguna San Ignacio Ecosystem Science Program, 14700 Springfield Road, Darnestown, Maryland 20874, USA
*
Correspondence should be addressed to: A. Thode Marine Physical Laboratory, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, San Diego, CA 92093-0205, USA email: athode@ucsd.edu
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Abstract

Between 2008 and 2010, 27 acoustic tags were applied to various age and reproductive classes of grey whales in Laguna San Ignacio, Mexico, a part of the Biosphere Reserve ‘El Vizcaino’. Besides previously described S1 and S3 calls, two additional calls were identified: the impulsive S8 call and the slightly frequency-modulated S9 call. These two additional S8 and S9 calls are by far the most common grey whale sounds detected on tags, even though contemporary bottom-mounted acoustic recordings also collected from the lagoon in 2008 yielded no S8 or S9 calls. The new S8 and old S3 calls display similar spectral maxima, even though the S3 is a frequency-modulated harmonic call and the S8 is a broadband impulsive call. This spectral analysis provides evidence that these new call types are not artefacts arising from mechanical vibration or flow noise.

Keywords

Passive acoustic monitoringgrey whale callssolitary and mother-calf pairs

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom , Volume 98 , Special Issue 5: Marine Mammals , August 2018 , pp. 1169 - 1175
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 2016 

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References

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