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Shaken, not stirred: blue whales show no acoustic response to earthquake events

Quantifying how animals respond to disturbance events bears relevance for understanding consequences to population health. We investigate whether blue whales respond acoustically to naturally occurring episodic noise by examining calling before and after earthquakes (27 040 calls, 32 earthquakes; 27...

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Autores principales: Barlow, Dawn R., Estrada Jorge, Mateo, Klinck, Holger, Torres, Leigh G.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9277279/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35845856
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.220242
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author Barlow, Dawn R.
Estrada Jorge, Mateo
Klinck, Holger
Torres, Leigh G.
author_facet Barlow, Dawn R.
Estrada Jorge, Mateo
Klinck, Holger
Torres, Leigh G.
author_sort Barlow, Dawn R.
collection PubMed
description Quantifying how animals respond to disturbance events bears relevance for understanding consequences to population health. We investigate whether blue whales respond acoustically to naturally occurring episodic noise by examining calling before and after earthquakes (27 040 calls, 32 earthquakes; 27 January–29 June 2016). Two vocalization types were evaluated: New Zealand blue whale song and downswept vocalizations ('D calls'). Blue whales did not alter the number of D calls, D call received level or song intensity following earthquakes (paired t-tests, p > 0.7 for all). Linear models accounting for earthquake strength and proximity revealed significant relationships between change in calling activity surrounding earthquakes and prior calling activity (D calls: R(2) = 0.277, p < 0.0001; song: R(2) = 0.080, p = 0.028); however, these same relationships were true for ‘null’ periods without earthquakes (D calls: R(2) = 0.262, p < 0.0001; song: R(2) = 0.149, p = 0.0002), indicating that the pattern is driven by blue whale calling context regardless of earthquake presence. Our findings that blue whales do not respond to episodic natural noise provide context for interpreting documented acoustic responses to anthropogenic noise sources, including shipping traffic and petroleum development, indicating that they potentially evolved tolerance for natural noise sources but not novel noise from anthropogenic origins.
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spelling pubmed-92772792022-07-15 Shaken, not stirred: blue whales show no acoustic response to earthquake events Barlow, Dawn R. Estrada Jorge, Mateo Klinck, Holger Torres, Leigh G. R Soc Open Sci Ecology, Conservation and Global Change Biology Quantifying how animals respond to disturbance events bears relevance for understanding consequences to population health. We investigate whether blue whales respond acoustically to naturally occurring episodic noise by examining calling before and after earthquakes (27 040 calls, 32 earthquakes; 27 January–29 June 2016). Two vocalization types were evaluated: New Zealand blue whale song and downswept vocalizations ('D calls'). Blue whales did not alter the number of D calls, D call received level or song intensity following earthquakes (paired t-tests, p > 0.7 for all). Linear models accounting for earthquake strength and proximity revealed significant relationships between change in calling activity surrounding earthquakes and prior calling activity (D calls: R(2) = 0.277, p < 0.0001; song: R(2) = 0.080, p = 0.028); however, these same relationships were true for ‘null’ periods without earthquakes (D calls: R(2) = 0.262, p < 0.0001; song: R(2) = 0.149, p = 0.0002), indicating that the pattern is driven by blue whale calling context regardless of earthquake presence. Our findings that blue whales do not respond to episodic natural noise provide context for interpreting documented acoustic responses to anthropogenic noise sources, including shipping traffic and petroleum development, indicating that they potentially evolved tolerance for natural noise sources but not novel noise from anthropogenic origins. The Royal Society 2022-07-13 /pmc/articles/PMC9277279/ /pubmed/35845856 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.220242 Text en © 2022 The Authors. https://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/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Ecology, Conservation and Global Change Biology
Barlow, Dawn R.
Estrada Jorge, Mateo
Klinck, Holger
Torres, Leigh G.
Shaken, not stirred: blue whales show no acoustic response to earthquake events
title Shaken, not stirred: blue whales show no acoustic response to earthquake events
title_full Shaken, not stirred: blue whales show no acoustic response to earthquake events
title_fullStr Shaken, not stirred: blue whales show no acoustic response to earthquake events
title_full_unstemmed Shaken, not stirred: blue whales show no acoustic response to earthquake events
title_short Shaken, not stirred: blue whales show no acoustic response to earthquake events
title_sort shaken, not stirred: blue whales show no acoustic response to earthquake events
topic Ecology, Conservation and Global Change Biology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9277279/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35845856
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.220242
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