Assessment of Acoustic Adaptations for Noise Compensation in Marine Mammals

• Main Author: Parks, Susan E
• Other Authors: PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV STATE COLLEGE APPLIED RESEARCH LAB
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: Biology; Acoustics; Radio Communications; *ACOUSTIC RECORDING SYSTEMS; *AQUATIC ANIMALS; *MAMMALS; *NOISE; *OCEAN ENVIRONMENTS; *SOUND; *WHALES; HYPOTHESES; IMPACT; NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN; SHALLOW WATER; NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE; EUBALAENA GLACIALIS; baleen whale; Eubalaena glacialis; North Atlantic; North Atlantic right whale
• Online Access: http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA598698; http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA598698

The proposed research will address the fundamental theoretical issue of noise compensation mechanisms in the vocal communication of marine mammals. Noise compensation mechanisms are important for improving signal transmission with an energy limited source. A better understanding of marine mammal noise compensation mechanisms can potentially provide effective means of improving signal transmission in a noisy marine environment and for assessing the impact of manmade sounds on the use of sound by marine mammals. The primary objectives of this project are to: 1) generate testable hypotheses of general vocal responses of marine mammals to particular noise types; and 2) test these hypotheses with data from two low-frequency baleen whale species in coastal shallow water environments using existing data from North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) acoustic tag recordings (Digital Archival Tag - Dtag) (Johnson and Tyack 2003) and new acoustic Dtag data collected from Southern right whales (Eubalaena australis).