Macro- and micro-geographic variation of short-beaked common dolphin’s whistles in the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean

2014 
Genetic studies have shown that there are small but significant differences between the short-beaked common dolphin populations in the Atlantic Ocean and those in the Mediterranean Sea. The short-beaked common dolphin is a highly vocal species with a wide sound production repertoire including whistles. Whistles are continuous, narrowband, frequency-modulated signals that can show geographic variation in dolphin species. This study tests whether the differences, highlighted by genetic studies, are recognisable in the acoustic features of short-beaked common dolphin’s whistles in the two adjacent areas of the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. From a selected sample of good quality whistles (514 recorded in the Atlantic and 193 in the Mediterranean) 10 parameters of duration, frequency and frequency modulation were measured. Comparing data among basins, differences were found for duration and all frequency parameters except for minimum frequency. Modulation parameters showed the highest coefficient o...
    • Correction
    • Source
    • Cite
    • Save
    • Machine Reading By IdeaReader
    50
    References
    19
    Citations
    NaN
    KQI
    []