Fin whale acoustic presence and song characteristics in seas to the southwest of Portugal

• Published in: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
• Main Authors: Pereira, Andreia, Harris, Danielle, Tyack, Peter, Matias, Luis
• Other Authors: Office of Naval Research, University of St Andrews. Sea Mammal Research Unit, University of St Andrews. School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews. Centre for Research into Ecological & Environmental Modelling, University of St Andrews. Centre for Social Learning & Cognitive Evolution, University of St Andrews. Scottish Oceans Institute, University of St Andrews. Marine Alliance for Science & Technology Scotland, University of St Andrews. Bioacoustics group, University of St Andrews. Sound Tags Group, University of St Andrews. School of Biology
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2020
• Subjects: GC Oceanography; QH301 Biology; Acoustics and Ultrasonics; DAS; GC; QH301; Fin whale; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/20784; https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0001066

Funding: D.H. was funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR; Award No. N00014-14-1-0394). P.T. acknowledges funding from ONR Award No. N00014-15-1-2553 and the MASTS pooling initiative (The Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland). MASTS is funded by the Scottish Funding Council (Grant Reference HR09011) and contributinginstitutions. Fin whales were once abundant in the seas to the southwest of Portugal, but whaling activities decreased their numbers considerably. Acoustic data from ocean bottom seismometers provide an opportunity to detect fin whales from their notes, data that would otherwise be logistically challenging and expensive to obtain. Based on inter-note interval and frequency bandwidth, two acoustic patterns produced by fin whales were detected in the study area: pattern 1, described from fin whales in the Mediterranean Sea, and pattern 2, associated with fin whales from the northeast North Atlantic Ocean (NENA). NENA fin whales travel into the western Mediterranean Sea, but the Mediterranean population has not been documented to travel regularly into the NENA. In this study, 11 months of acoustic data recorded southwest of Portugal in the NENA were used to characterize 20-Hz fin whale notes into these patterns. Pattern 2 was the most common and occurred mostly in November-January. Pattern 1 occurred less frequently and mostly in September-December, February and April, which suggested a limited excursion of whales from the Mediterranean Sea. There were also occasions when the two patterns were recorded simultaneously. Results suggest that fin whales from the NENA and Mediterranean Sea might mix in the area during part of the year. Publisher PDF Peer reviewed