Friday, November 12, 2004

Entrez PubMed

Entrez PubMed: "Nature. 2004 Apr 29;428(6986):910. Related Articles, Links
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Environment: whale-call response to masking boat noise.

Foote AD, Osborne RW, Hoelzel AR.

School of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, University of Durham, Durham DH1 3LE, UK.

Background noise can interfere with the detection and discrimination of crucial signals among members of a species. Here we investigate the vocal behaviour in the presence and absence of whale-watcher boat traffic of three social groups (pods) of killer whales (Orcinus orca) living in the nearshore waters of Washington state. We find longer call durations in the presence of boats for all three pods, but only in recent recordings made following a period of increasing boat traffic. This result indicates that these whales adjust their behaviour to compensate for anthropogenic noise once it reaches a threshold level."

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