Cryptic vocal behavior of foraging humpback whales on feeding grounds in West Greenland

Simone K.A. Videsen; Malene Simon; Mark Johnson; Peter Teglberg Madsen; Fredrik Christiansen

doi:10.1121/10.0006735

Cryptic vocal behavior of foraging humpback whales on feeding grounds in West Greenland

Simone K.A. Videsen^*, Malene Simon, Mark Johnson, Peter Teglberg Madsen, Fredrik Christiansen

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal/Conference contribution in journal/Contribution to newspaper › Journal article › Research › peer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Male humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) sing in mating aggregations in the form of song displays, but much less is known about how both sexes use sound on their feeding grounds. Here, we test different hypotheses about the function of vocalizations in 14 foraging humpback whales tagged with sound and movement recording Dtags in Greenland. We show that this population of foraging humpback whales have an overall low call rate of 11.9 calls h⁻¹ (inter-quartile range = 12.1) with no support for the hypotheses that they employ sound in the localization or manipulation of prey nor in the coordination of lunge feeding. The calls had a mean received level of 135 ± 5dB re 1 μPa, which is some 30 dB lower than maximum levels of song recorded on similar deployed tags, suggesting a much smaller active space of these vocalizations. This reduced active space might, in concert with low call rates, serve to mitigate eavesdropping by predatory killer whales or conspecifics competing for the same prey resources. We conclude that feeding humpback whales in Greenland produce low level, infrequent calls suggesting that calling is not a prerequisite for successful feeding, but likely serves to mediate within group social interactions.

Original language	English
Journal	The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Volume	150
Issue	4
Pages (from-to)	2879-2887
Number of pages	9
ISSN	0001-4966
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0006735
Publication status	Published - Oct 2021

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title = "Cryptic vocal behavior of foraging humpback whales on feeding grounds in West Greenland",

abstract = "Male humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) sing in mating aggregations in the form of song displays, but much less is known about how both sexes use sound on their feeding grounds. Here, we test different hypotheses about the function of vocalizations in 14 foraging humpback whales tagged with sound and movement recording Dtags in Greenland. We show that this population of foraging humpback whales have an overall low call rate of 11.9 calls h−1 (inter-quartile range = 12.1) with no support for the hypotheses that they employ sound in the localization or manipulation of prey nor in the coordination of lunge feeding. The calls had a mean received level of 135 ± 5dB re 1 μPa, which is some 30 dB lower than maximum levels of song recorded on similar deployed tags, suggesting a much smaller active space of these vocalizations. This reduced active space might, in concert with low call rates, serve to mitigate eavesdropping by predatory killer whales or conspecifics competing for the same prey resources. We conclude that feeding humpback whales in Greenland produce low level, infrequent calls suggesting that calling is not a prerequisite for successful feeding, but likely serves to mediate within group social interactions.",

author = "Videsen, {Simone K.A.} and Malene Simon and Mark Johnson and Madsen, {Peter Teglberg} and Fredrik Christiansen",

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year = "2021",

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doi = "10.1121/10.0006735",

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pages = "2879--2887",

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Cryptic vocal behavior of foraging humpback whales on feeding grounds in West Greenland. / Videsen, Simone K.A.; Simon, Malene; Johnson, Mark et al.
In: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol. 150, No. 4, 10.2021, p. 2879-2887.

Research output: Contribution to journal/Conference contribution in journal/Contribution to newspaper › Journal article › Research › peer-review

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AU - Christiansen, Fredrik

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Cryptic vocal behavior of foraging humpback whales on feeding grounds in West Greenland

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