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Dolphins simplify their vocal calls in response to increased ambient noise

Ocean noise varies spatially and temporally and is driven by natural and anthropogenic processes. Increased ambient noise levels can cause signal masking and communication impairment, affecting fitness and recruitment success. However, the effects of increasing ambient noise levels on marine species...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Fouda, Leila, Wingfield, Jessica E., Fandel, Amber D., Garrod, Aran, Hodge, Kristin B., Rice, Aaron N., Bailey, Helen
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6227850/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30355679
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2018.0484
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author Fouda, Leila
Wingfield, Jessica E.
Fandel, Amber D.
Garrod, Aran
Hodge, Kristin B.
Rice, Aaron N.
Bailey, Helen
author_facet Fouda, Leila
Wingfield, Jessica E.
Fandel, Amber D.
Garrod, Aran
Hodge, Kristin B.
Rice, Aaron N.
Bailey, Helen
author_sort Fouda, Leila
collection PubMed
description Ocean noise varies spatially and temporally and is driven by natural and anthropogenic processes. Increased ambient noise levels can cause signal masking and communication impairment, affecting fitness and recruitment success. However, the effects of increasing ambient noise levels on marine species, such as marine mammals that primarily rely on sound for communication, are not well understood. We investigated the effects of concurrent ambient noise levels on social whistle calls produced by bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in the western North Atlantic. Elevated ambient noise levels were mainly caused by ship noise. Increases in ship noise, both within and below the dolphins' call bandwidth, resulted in higher dolphin whistle frequencies and a reduction in whistle contour complexity, an acoustic feature associated with individual identification. Consequently, the noise-induced simplification of dolphin whistles may reduce the information content in these acoustic signals and decrease effective communication, parent–offspring proximity or group cohesion.
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spelling pubmed-62278502018-11-21 Dolphins simplify their vocal calls in response to increased ambient noise Fouda, Leila Wingfield, Jessica E. Fandel, Amber D. Garrod, Aran Hodge, Kristin B. Rice, Aaron N. Bailey, Helen Biol Lett Marine Biology Ocean noise varies spatially and temporally and is driven by natural and anthropogenic processes. Increased ambient noise levels can cause signal masking and communication impairment, affecting fitness and recruitment success. However, the effects of increasing ambient noise levels on marine species, such as marine mammals that primarily rely on sound for communication, are not well understood. We investigated the effects of concurrent ambient noise levels on social whistle calls produced by bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in the western North Atlantic. Elevated ambient noise levels were mainly caused by ship noise. Increases in ship noise, both within and below the dolphins' call bandwidth, resulted in higher dolphin whistle frequencies and a reduction in whistle contour complexity, an acoustic feature associated with individual identification. Consequently, the noise-induced simplification of dolphin whistles may reduce the information content in these acoustic signals and decrease effective communication, parent–offspring proximity or group cohesion. The Royal Society 2018-10 2018-10-24 /pmc/articles/PMC6227850/ /pubmed/30355679 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2018.0484 Text en © 2018 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Marine Biology
Fouda, Leila
Wingfield, Jessica E.
Fandel, Amber D.
Garrod, Aran
Hodge, Kristin B.
Rice, Aaron N.
Bailey, Helen
Dolphins simplify their vocal calls in response to increased ambient noise
title Dolphins simplify their vocal calls in response to increased ambient noise
title_full Dolphins simplify their vocal calls in response to increased ambient noise
title_fullStr Dolphins simplify their vocal calls in response to increased ambient noise
title_full_unstemmed Dolphins simplify their vocal calls in response to increased ambient noise
title_short Dolphins simplify their vocal calls in response to increased ambient noise
title_sort dolphins simplify their vocal calls in response to increased ambient noise
topic Marine Biology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6227850/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30355679
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2018.0484
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