Caller identification and characterization of individual humpback whale acoustic behavior ...

• Main Authors: Zeh, Julia, Perez-Marrufo, Valeria, Adcock, Dana, Knapp, Kaitlyn, Jensen, Frants, Robbins, Jooke, Tackaberry, Jennifer, Weinrich, Mason, Friedlaender, Ari, Wiley, David, Parks, Susan
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2023
• Subjects: FOS: Biological sciences; biologging; bouts; call rate; caller ID; DTAG; Humpback whales; tags; vocal exchange; Humpback Whale; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.w9ghx3fw2; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.w9ghx3fw2

Acoustic recording tags provide fine scale data linking acoustic signaling with individual behavior; however, when an animal is in a group, it is challenging to tease apart calls of conspecifics and identify which individuals produce each call. This, in turn, prohibits robust assessment of individual acoustic behavior including call rates and silent periods, call bout production within and between individuals, and caller location. To overcome this challenge, we simultaneously instrumented small groups of humpback whales on a western North Atlantic feeding ground with sound and movement recording tags. This approach enabled comparison of relative amplitude of each call across individuals to infer caller identity for 97% of calls. We found that humpback whale individual call rates are highly variable across individuals and groups (0-89 calls/h), with calls produced throughout dives and in bouts with short inter-call intervals (ICI = 2.2s). Most calls received a likely response from a conspecific within 100s. ... : # Humpback Whale Caller ID [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.w9ghx3fw2](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.w9ghx3fw2) The data included here are processed measurements and code from analysis of humpback whale tag records collected as part of a large collaborative study in the Gulf of Maine. The data include caller ID classifications for calls detected on 16 tags across 7 different groups of 2-3 humpback whales, as well as calculated inter-call intervals within and between individuals, and whale depth at the time of production of each focal call. ## Description of the data and file structure 1. Focal/non-focal call analysis The file "CallAnalysis_Focal_Nonfocal.csv" lists all of the selections which were made manually in the tag record, as described in the manuscript. The file lists call number, call start time, group ID, and then columns for each of the tags in the group (Tags A, B, and C). The Tag C column is listed as NA if there were only two tags in a given group. The Tag A, B, and C columns list the caller ID ...