Acoustic Signaling by Singing Humpback Whales (Megaptera novaeangliae): What Role Does Reverberation Play?
When humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) sing in coastal waters, the units they produce can generate reverberation. Traditionally, such reverberant acoustic energy has been viewed as an incidental side-effect of high-amplitude, long-distance, sound transmission in the ocean. An alternative poss...
Published in: | PLOS ONE |
---|---|
Main Author: | |
Format: | Text |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Public Library of Science
2016
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5132011/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27907182 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0167277 |
id |
ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:5132011 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:5132011 2023-05-15T16:36:05+02:00 Acoustic Signaling by Singing Humpback Whales (Megaptera novaeangliae): What Role Does Reverberation Play? Mercado, Eduardo 2016-12-01 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5132011/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27907182 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0167277 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5132011/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27907182 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0167277 © 2016 Eduardo Mercado http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. CC-BY Research Article Text 2016 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0167277 2016-12-25T00:59:36Z When humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) sing in coastal waters, the units they produce can generate reverberation. Traditionally, such reverberant acoustic energy has been viewed as an incidental side-effect of high-amplitude, long-distance, sound transmission in the ocean. An alternative possibility, however, is that reverberation actually contributes to the structure and function of songs. In the current study, this possibility was assessed by analyzing reverberation generated by humpback whale song units, as well as the spectral structure of unit sequences, produced by singers from different regions. Acoustical analyses revealed that: (1) a subset of units within songs generated narrowband reverberant energy that in some cases persisted for periods longer than the interval between units; (2) these highly reverberant units were regularly repeated throughout the production of songs; and (3) units occurring before and after these units often contained spectral energy peaks at non-overlapping, adjacent frequencies that were systematically related to the bands of reverberant energy generated by the units. These findings strongly suggest that some singing humpback whales not only produce sounds conducive to long-duration reverberation, but also may sequentially structure songs to avoid spectral overlap between units and ongoing reverberation. Singer-generated reverberant energy that is received simultaneously with directly transmitted song units can potentially provide listening whales with spatial cues that may enable them to more accurately determine a singer’s position. Text Humpback Whale Megaptera novaeangliae PubMed Central (PMC) PLOS ONE 11 12 e0167277 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
PubMed Central (PMC) |
op_collection_id |
ftpubmed |
language |
English |
topic |
Research Article |
spellingShingle |
Research Article Mercado, Eduardo Acoustic Signaling by Singing Humpback Whales (Megaptera novaeangliae): What Role Does Reverberation Play? |
topic_facet |
Research Article |
description |
When humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) sing in coastal waters, the units they produce can generate reverberation. Traditionally, such reverberant acoustic energy has been viewed as an incidental side-effect of high-amplitude, long-distance, sound transmission in the ocean. An alternative possibility, however, is that reverberation actually contributes to the structure and function of songs. In the current study, this possibility was assessed by analyzing reverberation generated by humpback whale song units, as well as the spectral structure of unit sequences, produced by singers from different regions. Acoustical analyses revealed that: (1) a subset of units within songs generated narrowband reverberant energy that in some cases persisted for periods longer than the interval between units; (2) these highly reverberant units were regularly repeated throughout the production of songs; and (3) units occurring before and after these units often contained spectral energy peaks at non-overlapping, adjacent frequencies that were systematically related to the bands of reverberant energy generated by the units. These findings strongly suggest that some singing humpback whales not only produce sounds conducive to long-duration reverberation, but also may sequentially structure songs to avoid spectral overlap between units and ongoing reverberation. Singer-generated reverberant energy that is received simultaneously with directly transmitted song units can potentially provide listening whales with spatial cues that may enable them to more accurately determine a singer’s position. |
format |
Text |
author |
Mercado, Eduardo |
author_facet |
Mercado, Eduardo |
author_sort |
Mercado, Eduardo |
title |
Acoustic Signaling by Singing Humpback Whales (Megaptera novaeangliae): What Role Does Reverberation Play? |
title_short |
Acoustic Signaling by Singing Humpback Whales (Megaptera novaeangliae): What Role Does Reverberation Play? |
title_full |
Acoustic Signaling by Singing Humpback Whales (Megaptera novaeangliae): What Role Does Reverberation Play? |
title_fullStr |
Acoustic Signaling by Singing Humpback Whales (Megaptera novaeangliae): What Role Does Reverberation Play? |
title_full_unstemmed |
Acoustic Signaling by Singing Humpback Whales (Megaptera novaeangliae): What Role Does Reverberation Play? |
title_sort |
acoustic signaling by singing humpback whales (megaptera novaeangliae): what role does reverberation play? |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5132011/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27907182 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0167277 |
genre |
Humpback Whale Megaptera novaeangliae |
genre_facet |
Humpback Whale Megaptera novaeangliae |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5132011/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27907182 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0167277 |
op_rights |
© 2016 Eduardo Mercado http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0167277 |
container_title |
PLOS ONE |
container_volume |
11 |
container_issue |
12 |
container_start_page |
e0167277 |
_version_ |
1766026393214255104 |