Dear colleagues,
on behalf of my coauthors, I am pleased to announce the publication of
our article:
Sciacca V, Caruso F, Beranzoli L, Chierici F, De Domenico E, Embriaco D,
Favali, P., Giovanetti, G., Larosa, G., Marinaro, G., Papale, E., Pavan,
G., Pellegrino, C., Pulvirenti, S., Simeone, F., Viola, S., Riccobene,
G. (2015) *Annual Acoustic Presence of Fin Whale (Balaenoptera physalus)
Offshore Eastern Sicily, Central Mediterranean Sea*. PLoS ONE 10(11):
e0141838. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0141838
Abstract:
In recent years, an increasing number of surveys have definitively
confirmed the seasonal presence of fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) in
highly productive regions of the Mediterranean Sea. Despite this, very
little is yet known about the routes that the species seasonally follows
within the Mediterranean basin and, particularly, in the Ionian area.
The present study assesses for the first time fin whale acoustic
presence offshore Eastern Sicily (Ionian Sea), throughout the processing
of about 10 months of continuous acoustic monitoring. The recording of
fin whale vocalizations was made possible by the cabled deep-sea
multidisciplinary observatory, “NEMO-SN1”, deployed 25 km off the
Catania harbor at a depth of about 2,100 meters. NEMO-SN1 is an
operational node of the European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and
water-column Observatory (EMSO) Research Infrastructure. The observatory
was equipped with a low-frequency hydrophone (bandwidth: 0.05 Hz–1 kHz,
sampling rate: 2 kHz) which continuously acquired data from July 2012 to
May 2013. About 7,200 hours of acoustic data were analyzed by means of
spectrogram display. Calls with the typical structure and patterns
associated to the Mediterranean fin whale population were identified and
monitored in the area for the first time. Furthermore, a background
noise analysis within the fin whale communication frequency band
(17.9–22.5 Hz) was conducted to investigate possible detection-masking
effects. The study confirms the hypothesis that fin whales are present
in the Ionian Sea throughout all seasons, with peaks in call detection
rate during spring and summer months. The analysis also demonstrates
that calls were more frequently detected in low background noise
conditions. Further analysis will be performed to understand whether
observed levels of noise limit the acoustic detection of the fin whales
vocalizations, or whether the animals vocalize less in the presence of
high background noise.
The article can be accessed here:
http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141838
Kind Regards,
Virginia Sciacca
PhD student, Environmental Sciences: marine environment and resources
Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Messina
Viale Ferdinando Stagno d' Alcontres,31,98166 Messina, ITALY.
Italian Institute for Nuclear Physics – Southern National Laboratories
INFN – LNS. Via Santa Sofia 62, 95125 Catania, ITALY.
email. [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
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