The Source Parameters of Echolocation Clicks from Captive and Free-Ranging Yangtze Finless Porpoises (Neophocaena asiaeorientalis asiaeorientalis)

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Abstract

The clicks of Yangtze finless porpoises ( Neophocaena asiaeorientalis asiaeorientalis) from 7 individuals in the tank of Baiji aquarium, 2 individuals in a netted pen at Shishou Tian-e-zhou Reserve and 4 free-ranging individuals at Tianxingzhou were recorded using a broadband digital recording system with four element hydrophones. The peak-to-peak apparent source level (ASL_ _pp) of clicks from individuals at the Baiji aquarium was 167 dB re 1 μPa with mean center frequency of 133 kHz, -3dB bandwidth of 18 kHz and -10 dB duration of 58 μs. The ASL_ _pp of clicks from individuals at the Shishou Tian-e-zhou Reserve was 180 dB re 1 μPa with mean center frequency of 128 kHz, -3dB bandwidth of 20 kHz and -10 dB duration of 39 μs. The ASL_ _pp of clicks from individuals at Tianxingzhou was 176 dB re 1 μPa with mean center frequency of 129 kHz, -3dB bandwidth of 15 kHz and -10 dB duration of 48 μs. Differences between the source parameters of clicks among the three groups of finless porpoises suggest these animals adapt to their echolocation signals depending on their surroundings.

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Beaked whales echolocate on prey.

Peter L Tyack, Natacha Aguilar de Soto, Walter M X Zimmer … (2004)

Beaked whales (Cetacea: Ziphiidea) of the genera Ziphius and Mesoplodon are so difficult to study that they are mostly known from strandings. How these elusive toothed whales use and react to sound is of concern because they mass strand during naval sonar exercises. A new non-invasive acoustic ording tag was attached to four beaked whales(two Mesoplodon densirostris and two Ziphius cavirostris) and recorded high-frequency clicks during deep dives. The tagged whales only clicked at depths below 200 m, down to a maximum depth of 1267 m. Both species produced a large number of short, directional, ultrasonic clicks with significant energy below 20 kHz. The tags recorded echoes from prey items; to our knowledge, a first for any animal echolocating in the wild. As far as we are aware, these echoes provide the first direct evidence on how free-ranging toothed whales use echolocation in foraging. The strength of these echoes suggests that the source level of Mesoplodon clicks is in the range of 200-220 dB re 1 microPa at 1 m. This paper presents conclusive data on the normal vocalizations of these beaked whale species, which may enable acoustic monitoring to mitigate exposure to sounds intense enough to harm them.

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Biosonar performance of foraging beaked whales (Mesoplodon densirostris).

M. Johnson, P Madsen, Karla N. Oliveira … (2005)

Toothed whales (Cetacea, odontoceti) emit sound pulses to probe their surroundings by active echolocation. Non-invasive, acoustic Dtags were placed on deep-diving Blainville's beaked whales (Mesoplodon densirostris) to record their ultrasonic clicks and the returning echoes from prey items, providing a unique view on how a whale operates its biosonar during foraging in the wild. The process of echolocation during prey capture in this species can be divided into search, approach and terminal phases, as in echolocating bats. The approach phase, defined by the onset of detectable echoes recorded on the tag for click sequences terminated by a buzz, has interclick intervals (ICI) of 300-400 ms. These ICIs are more than a magnitude longer than the decreasing two-way travel time to the targets, showing that ICIs are not given by the two-way-travel times plus a fixed, short lag time. During the approach phase, the received echo energy increases by 10.4(+/-2) dB when the target range is halved, demonstrating that the whales do not employ range-compensating gain control of the transmitter, as has been implicated for some bats and dolphins. The terminal/buzz phase with ICIs of around 10 ms is initiated when one or more targets are within approximately a body length of the whale (2-5 m), so that strong echo returns in the approach phase are traded for rapid updates in the terminal phase. It is suggested that stable ICIs in the search and approach phases facilitate auditory scene analysis in a complex multi-target environment, and that a concomitant low click rate allows the whales to maintain high sound pressure outputs for prey detection and discrimination with a pneumatically driven, bi-modal sound generator.

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Foraging Blainville's beaked whales (Mesoplodon densirostris) produce distinct click types matched to different phases of echolocation.

N. Ornelas-Soto, M. Johnson, W M X Zimmer … (2006)

Blainville's beaked whales (Mesoplodon densirostris Blainville) echolocate for prey during deep foraging dives. Here we use acoustic tags to demonstrate that these whales, in contrast to other toothed whales studied, produce two distinct types of click sounds during different phases in biosonar-based foraging. Search clicks are emitted during foraging dives with inter-click intervals typically between 0.2 and 0.4 s. They have the distinctive form of an FM upsweep (modulation rate of about 110 kHz ms(-1)) with a -10 dB bandwidth from 26 to 51 kHz and a pulse length of 270 micros, somewhat similar to chirp signals in bats and Cuvier's beaked whales (Ziphius cavirostris Cuvier), but quite different from clicks of other toothed whales studied. In comparison, the buzz clicks, produced in short bursts during the final stage of prey capture, are short (105 micros) transients with no FM structure and a -10 dB bandwidth from 25 to 80 kHz or higher. Buzz clicks have properties similar to clicks reported from large delphinids and hold the potential for higher temporal resolution than the FM clicks. It is suggested that the two click types are adapted to the separate problems of target detection and classification versus capture of low target strength prey in a cluttered acoustic environment.

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Author and article information

Contributors

Andreas Fahlman: Role: Academic Editor

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): PLoS One

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): PLoS ONE

Journal ID (publisher-id): plos

Journal ID (pmc): plosone

Title: PLoS ONE

Publisher: Public Library of Science (San Francisco, CA USA )

ISSN (Electronic): 1932-6203

Publication date (Electronic): 8 June 2015

Publication date Collection: 2015

Volume: 10

Issue: 6

Electronic Location Identifier: e0129143

Affiliations

[1 ]The Key Laboratory of Aquatic Biodiversity and Conservation of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430072, China

[2 ]University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

[3 ]Sanya Key Laboratory of Marine Mammal and Marine Bioacoustics, Sanya Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Sanya, 572000, China

Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, UNITED STATES

Author notes

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Conceived and designed the experiments: LF KW DW. Performed the experiments: LF YTL ZLC. Analyzed the data: LF SHL KW DW. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: LF SHL KW DW. Wrote the paper: LF MKP.

* E-mail: Wangk@ 123456ihb.ac.cn (KW); lish@ 123456sidsse.ac.cn (SL)

Article

Publisher ID: PONE-D-15-06351

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0129143

PMC ID: 4459872

PubMed ID: 26053758

SO-VID: 6b2475d6-24de-493a-9013-1c1b76ab86b1

License:

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

History

Date received : 11 February 2015

Date accepted : 4 May 2015

Page count

Figures: 7, Tables: 2, Pages: 14

Funding

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31170501 and No.31430080). The data analysis and writing of the manuscript were supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 41306169 and 41422604), the “Hundred Talents Program” of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (SIDSSE-BR-315 201201, Y410012), the Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (SIDSSE-316 201210), and Sanya Key Laboratory of Marine Mammal and Marine Bioacoustics (L1402).

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Data Availability All data underlying the findings are fully available without restriction. All relevant data are within the paper.

The Source Parameters of Echolocation Clicks from Captive and Free-Ranging Yangtze Finless Porpoises ( Neophocaena asiaeorientalis asiaeorientalis)

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Most cited references 24

Beaked whales echolocate on prey.

Biosonar performance of foraging beaked whales (Mesoplodon densirostris).

Foraging Blainville's beaked whales (Mesoplodon densirostris) produce distinct click types matched to different phases of echolocation.

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