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. 2020 Nov 26;10(1):20609.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-74111-y.

Australian long-finned pilot whales (Globicephala melas) emit stereotypical, variable, biphonic, multi-component, and sequenced vocalisations, similar to those recorded in the northern hemisphere

Rachael Courts  1 , Christine Erbe  2 , Rebecca Wellard  2   3 , Oliver Boisseau  4 , K Curt Jenner  5 , Micheline-N Jenner  5
Affiliations

Australian long-finned pilot whales (Globicephala melas) emit stereotypical, variable, biphonic, multi-component, and sequenced vocalisations, similar to those recorded in the northern hemisphere

Rachael Courts et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

While in the northern hemisphere, many studies have been conducted on the vocal repertoire of long-finned pilot whales (Globicephala melas), no such study has been conducted in the southern hemisphere. Presented here, is the first study on the vocalisations of long-finned pilot whales along the southern coast of mainland Australia. Multiple measures were taken of 2028 vocalisations recorded over five years in several locations. These vocalisations included tonal sounds with and without overtones, sounds of burst-pulse character, graded sounds, biphonations, and calls of multiple components. Vocalisations were further categorised based on spectrographic features into 18 contour classes. Altogether, vocalisations ranged from approximately 200 Hz to 25 kHz in fundamental frequency and from 0.03 s to 2.07 s in duration. These measures compared well with those from northern hemisphere pilot whales. Some call types were almost identical to northern hemisphere vocalisations, even though the geographic ranges of the two populations are far apart. Other call types were unique to Australia. Striking similarities with calls of short-finned pilot whales (Globicephala macrorhynchus) and sometimes sympatric killer whales (Orcinus orca) were also found. Theories for call convergence and divergence are discussed.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
(a) Scatter plot of end frequency versus start frequency showing overall upsweeping contours (blue) above the diagonal and downsweeping contours (green) below. Vocalisations classified as flat (red) hug the diagonal. (b) Histogram of the absolute of the slope in logarithmically increasing bins with edges at 0, 1, 3, 7, 15, 31, and 63 kHz.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Spectrograms of 18 contour classes: (a) Class-1, (b) Class-2, (c) Class-3, (d) Class-4, (e) Class-5, (f) Class-6, arrow points to sideband, (g) Class-7, (h) Class-8, (i) Class-9, (j) Class-10, (k) Class-11, (l) Class-12, (m) Class-13, (n) Class-14, (o) Class-15, (p) Class-16, (q) Class-17, (r) Class-18, arrow points to sideband. Spectrogram settings: 47-Hz resolution, Hann window, 90% overlap.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Spectrograms of repeated vocalisations and one example of duetting: (a) repeated downsweeps (Class 2), (b) repeated upsweeps (Class 1), (c) repeated biphonation (Class 15), (d) repeated three-part vocalisation (Class 16), and (e) duet of convex (Class 5) and constant vocalisations (Class 3). Spectrogram settings: 47-Hz resolution, Hann window, 90% overlap.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Map of the study region, southern coast of Australia, showing the locations where acoustic recordings were taken between 2013 and 2017.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Example spectrogram indicating most of the parameters measured for vocalisations.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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