Female harbor seal ( Phoca vitulina) behavioral response to playbacks of underwater male acoustic advertisement displays
During the breeding season, male harbor seals ( Phoca vitulina ) make underwater acoustic displays using vocalizations known as roars. These roars have been shown to function in territory establishment in some breeding areas and have been hypothesized to be important for female choice, but the funct...
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crpeerj:10.7717/peerj.4547 2024-06-02T08:07:46+00:00 Female harbor seal ( Phoca vitulina) behavioral response to playbacks of underwater male acoustic advertisement displays Matthews, Leanna P. Blades, Brittany Parks, Susan E. Marine Mammal Commission National Geographic Young Explorer’s Grant 2018 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4547 https://peerj.com/articles/4547.pdf https://peerj.com/articles/4547.xml https://peerj.com/articles/4547.html en eng PeerJ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ PeerJ volume 6, page e4547 ISSN 2167-8359 journal-article 2018 crpeerj https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4547 2024-05-07T14:13:38Z During the breeding season, male harbor seals ( Phoca vitulina ) make underwater acoustic displays using vocalizations known as roars. These roars have been shown to function in territory establishment in some breeding areas and have been hypothesized to be important for female choice, but the function of these sounds remains unresolved. This study consisted of a series of playback experiments in which captive female harbor seals were exposed to recordings of male roars to determine if females respond to recordings of male vocalizations and whether or not they respond differently to roars from categories with different acoustic characteristics. The categories included roars with characteristics of dominant males (longest duration, lowest frequency), subordinate males (shortest duration, highest frequency), combinations of call parameters from dominant and subordinate males (long duration, high frequency and short duration, low frequency), and control playbacks of water noise and water noise with tonal signals in the same frequency range as male signals. Results indicate that overall females have a significantly higher level of response to playbacks that imitate male vocalizations when compared to control playbacks of water noise. Specifically, there was a higher level of response to playbacks representing dominant male vocalization when compared to the control playbacks. For most individuals, there was a greater response to playbacks representing dominant male vocalizations compared to playbacks representing subordinate male vocalizations; however, there was no statistical difference between those two playback types. Additionally, there was no difference between the playbacks of call parameter combinations and the controls. Investigating female preference for male harbor seal vocalizations is a critical step in understanding the harbor seal mating system and further studies expanding on this captive study will help shed light on this important issue. Article in Journal/Newspaper harbor seal Phoca vitulina PeerJ Publishing PeerJ 6 e4547 |
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English |
description |
During the breeding season, male harbor seals ( Phoca vitulina ) make underwater acoustic displays using vocalizations known as roars. These roars have been shown to function in territory establishment in some breeding areas and have been hypothesized to be important for female choice, but the function of these sounds remains unresolved. This study consisted of a series of playback experiments in which captive female harbor seals were exposed to recordings of male roars to determine if females respond to recordings of male vocalizations and whether or not they respond differently to roars from categories with different acoustic characteristics. The categories included roars with characteristics of dominant males (longest duration, lowest frequency), subordinate males (shortest duration, highest frequency), combinations of call parameters from dominant and subordinate males (long duration, high frequency and short duration, low frequency), and control playbacks of water noise and water noise with tonal signals in the same frequency range as male signals. Results indicate that overall females have a significantly higher level of response to playbacks that imitate male vocalizations when compared to control playbacks of water noise. Specifically, there was a higher level of response to playbacks representing dominant male vocalization when compared to the control playbacks. For most individuals, there was a greater response to playbacks representing dominant male vocalizations compared to playbacks representing subordinate male vocalizations; however, there was no statistical difference between those two playback types. Additionally, there was no difference between the playbacks of call parameter combinations and the controls. Investigating female preference for male harbor seal vocalizations is a critical step in understanding the harbor seal mating system and further studies expanding on this captive study will help shed light on this important issue. |
author2 |
Marine Mammal Commission National Geographic Young Explorer’s Grant |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Matthews, Leanna P. Blades, Brittany Parks, Susan E. |
spellingShingle |
Matthews, Leanna P. Blades, Brittany Parks, Susan E. Female harbor seal ( Phoca vitulina) behavioral response to playbacks of underwater male acoustic advertisement displays |
author_facet |
Matthews, Leanna P. Blades, Brittany Parks, Susan E. |
author_sort |
Matthews, Leanna P. |
title |
Female harbor seal ( Phoca vitulina) behavioral response to playbacks of underwater male acoustic advertisement displays |
title_short |
Female harbor seal ( Phoca vitulina) behavioral response to playbacks of underwater male acoustic advertisement displays |
title_full |
Female harbor seal ( Phoca vitulina) behavioral response to playbacks of underwater male acoustic advertisement displays |
title_fullStr |
Female harbor seal ( Phoca vitulina) behavioral response to playbacks of underwater male acoustic advertisement displays |
title_full_unstemmed |
Female harbor seal ( Phoca vitulina) behavioral response to playbacks of underwater male acoustic advertisement displays |
title_sort |
female harbor seal ( phoca vitulina) behavioral response to playbacks of underwater male acoustic advertisement displays |
publisher |
PeerJ |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4547 https://peerj.com/articles/4547.pdf https://peerj.com/articles/4547.xml https://peerj.com/articles/4547.html |
genre |
harbor seal Phoca vitulina |
genre_facet |
harbor seal Phoca vitulina |
op_source |
PeerJ volume 6, page e4547 ISSN 2167-8359 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4547 |
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PeerJ |
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6 |
container_start_page |
e4547 |
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1800752887592124416 |