Dear colleagues,
My co-authors and I are pleased to announce the publication of our new
article on bowhead whale songs:
Erbs, F., van der Schaar, M., Weissenberger, J. et al.*Contribution to
unravel variability in bowhead whale songs and better understand its
ecological significance*. Sci Rep 11, 168 (2021).
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-80220-5
*Abstract*
Since the first studies on bowhead whale singing behaviour, song
variations have been consistently reported. However, there has been
little discussion regarding variability in bowhead whale singing display
and its ecological significance. Unlike the better studied humpback
whales, bowhead whales do not appear to share songs at population level,
but several studies have reported song sharing within clusters of
animals. Over the winter season 2013–2014, in an unstudied wintering
ground off Northeast Greenland, 13 song groups sharing similar
hierarchical structure and units were identified. Unit types were
assessed through multidimensional maps, showing well separated clusters
corresponding to manually labelled units, and revealing the presence of
unit subtypes. Units presented contrasting levels of variability over
their acoustic parameters, suggesting that bowhead whales keep
consistency in some units while using a continuum in values of
frequency, duration and modulation parameters for other unit types.
Those findings emphasise the need to account for variability in song
analysis to better understand the behavioural ecology of this endangered
species. Additionally, shifting from song toward units or phrase-based
analysis, as it has been suggested for humpback whales, offers the
opportunity to identify and track similarities in songs over temporal
and geographical scales relevant to population monitoring.
The open-access article can be downloaded from
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-80220-5
<https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-80220-5>
Please feel free to contact me ([email protected]) if you have any
questions.
Best wishes,
Florence
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*Florence Erbs*
Laboratory of Applied Bioacoustics (LAB)
Rambla Exposició, 24 | 08800 Vilanova i la Geltrú
Barcelona, Spain
Office +34 93 896 72 27
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
lab.upc.edu <http://www.lab.upc.edu/>, listentothedeep.com
<http://www.listentothedeep.com/>
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