Migratory behavior of eastern North Pacific gray whales tracked using a hydrophone array
Eastern North Pacific gray whales make one of the longest annual migrations of any mammal, traveling from their summer feeding areas in the Bering and Chukchi Seas to their wintering areas in the lagoons of Baja California, Mexico. Although a significant body of knowledge on gray whale biology and b...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:5662093 2023-05-15T15:54:37+02:00 Migratory behavior of eastern North Pacific gray whales tracked using a hydrophone array Guazzo, Regina A. Helble, Tyler A. D’Spain, Gerald L. Weller, David W. Wiggins, Sean M. Hildebrand, John A. 2017-10-30 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5662093/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29084266 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185585 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5662093/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29084266 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185585 https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) public domain dedication. CC0 PDM Research Article Text 2017 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185585 2017-11-12T01:12:50Z Eastern North Pacific gray whales make one of the longest annual migrations of any mammal, traveling from their summer feeding areas in the Bering and Chukchi Seas to their wintering areas in the lagoons of Baja California, Mexico. Although a significant body of knowledge on gray whale biology and behavior exists, little is known about their vocal behavior while migrating. In this study, we used a sparse hydrophone array deployed offshore of central California to investigate how gray whales behave and use sound while migrating. We detected, localized, and tracked whales for one full migration season, a first for gray whales. We verified and localized 10,644 gray whale M3 calls and grouped them into 280 tracks. Results confirm that gray whales are acoustically active while migrating and their swimming and acoustic behavior changes on daily and seasonal time scales. The seasonal timing of the calls verifies the gray whale migration timing determined using other methods such as counts conducted by visual observers. The total number of calls and the percentage of calls that were part of a track changed significantly over both seasonal and daily time scales. An average calling rate of 5.7 calls/whale/day was observed, which is significantly greater than previously reported migration calling rates. We measured a mean speed of 1.6 m/s and quantified heading, direction, and water depth where tracks were located. Mean speed and water depth remained constant between night and day, but these quantities had greater variation at night. Gray whales produce M3 calls with a root mean square source level of 156.9 dB re 1 μPa at 1 m. Quantities describing call characteristics were variable and dependent on site-specific propagation characteristics. Text Chukchi PubMed Central (PMC) Baja Pacific PLOS ONE 12 10 e0185585 |
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Research Article Guazzo, Regina A. Helble, Tyler A. D’Spain, Gerald L. Weller, David W. Wiggins, Sean M. Hildebrand, John A. Migratory behavior of eastern North Pacific gray whales tracked using a hydrophone array |
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Research Article |
description |
Eastern North Pacific gray whales make one of the longest annual migrations of any mammal, traveling from their summer feeding areas in the Bering and Chukchi Seas to their wintering areas in the lagoons of Baja California, Mexico. Although a significant body of knowledge on gray whale biology and behavior exists, little is known about their vocal behavior while migrating. In this study, we used a sparse hydrophone array deployed offshore of central California to investigate how gray whales behave and use sound while migrating. We detected, localized, and tracked whales for one full migration season, a first for gray whales. We verified and localized 10,644 gray whale M3 calls and grouped them into 280 tracks. Results confirm that gray whales are acoustically active while migrating and their swimming and acoustic behavior changes on daily and seasonal time scales. The seasonal timing of the calls verifies the gray whale migration timing determined using other methods such as counts conducted by visual observers. The total number of calls and the percentage of calls that were part of a track changed significantly over both seasonal and daily time scales. An average calling rate of 5.7 calls/whale/day was observed, which is significantly greater than previously reported migration calling rates. We measured a mean speed of 1.6 m/s and quantified heading, direction, and water depth where tracks were located. Mean speed and water depth remained constant between night and day, but these quantities had greater variation at night. Gray whales produce M3 calls with a root mean square source level of 156.9 dB re 1 μPa at 1 m. Quantities describing call characteristics were variable and dependent on site-specific propagation characteristics. |
format |
Text |
author |
Guazzo, Regina A. Helble, Tyler A. D’Spain, Gerald L. Weller, David W. Wiggins, Sean M. Hildebrand, John A. |
author_facet |
Guazzo, Regina A. Helble, Tyler A. D’Spain, Gerald L. Weller, David W. Wiggins, Sean M. Hildebrand, John A. |
author_sort |
Guazzo, Regina A. |
title |
Migratory behavior of eastern North Pacific gray whales tracked using a hydrophone array |
title_short |
Migratory behavior of eastern North Pacific gray whales tracked using a hydrophone array |
title_full |
Migratory behavior of eastern North Pacific gray whales tracked using a hydrophone array |
title_fullStr |
Migratory behavior of eastern North Pacific gray whales tracked using a hydrophone array |
title_full_unstemmed |
Migratory behavior of eastern North Pacific gray whales tracked using a hydrophone array |
title_sort |
migratory behavior of eastern north pacific gray whales tracked using a hydrophone array |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2017 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5662093/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29084266 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185585 |
geographic |
Baja Pacific |
geographic_facet |
Baja Pacific |
genre |
Chukchi |
genre_facet |
Chukchi |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5662093/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29084266 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185585 |
op_rights |
https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) public domain dedication. |
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CC0 PDM |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185585 |
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PLOS ONE |
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12 |
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