Technical University of Catalonia, BarcelonaTech (UPC), Laboratory of Applied Bioacoustics (LAB), Rambla Exposició, 24, 08800 Vilanova i la Geltru, Barcelona, Spain.
Institut d'Investigació per a la Gestió Integrada de les Zones Costaneres (IGIC) - Universitat Politècnica de Valencia, C/Paranimf 1, 46730 Gandia, Spain.
Sci Rep. 2017 Apr 12;7:45517. doi: 10.1038/srep45517.
Despite dedicated research has been carried out to adequately map the distribution of the sperm whale in the Mediterranean Sea, unlike other regions of the world, the species population status is still presently uncertain. The analysis of two years of continuous acoustic data provided by the ANTARES neutrino telescope revealed the year-round presence of sperm whales in the Ligurian Sea, probably associated with the availability of cephalopods in the region. The presence of the Ligurian Sea sperm whales was demonstrated through the real-time analysis of audio data streamed from a cabled-to-shore deep-sea observatory that allowed the hourly tracking of their long-range echolocation behaviour on the Internet. Interestingly, the same acoustic analysis indicated that the occurrence of surface shipping noise would apparently not condition the foraging behaviour of the sperm whale in the area, since shipping noise was almost always present when sperm whales were acoustically detected. The continuous presence of the sperm whale in the region confirms the ecological value of the Ligurian sea and the importance of ANTARES to help monitoring its ecosystems.
尽管已经进行了专门的研究来充分绘制地中海中抹香鲸的分布情况，但与世界其他地区不同，该物种的种群状况目前仍然不确定。两年的连续声学数据分析显示，在利古里亚海全年都有抹香鲸的存在，这可能与该地区头足类动物的存在有关。通过对从海底观测站实时传输的音频数据进行实时分析，证明了利古里亚海抹香鲸的存在，这使得可以在互联网上每小时追踪它们的远程回声定位行为。有趣的是，同样的声学分析表明，表面航运噪音的发生显然不会影响该地区抹香鲸的觅食行为，因为当抹香鲸在声学上被检测到时，航运噪音几乎总是存在。抹香鲸在该地区的持续存在证实了利古里亚海的生态价值，以及 ANTARES 有助于监测其生态系统的重要性。
