Barlow Dawn R, Estrada Jorge Mateo, Klinck Holger, Torres Leigh G
Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Lab, Marine Mammal Institute, and Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences, Oregon State University, Newport, Oregon, USA.
Department of Computer Science and Department of Physics, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, USA.
R Soc Open Sci. 2022 Jul 13;9(7):220242. doi: 10.1098/rsos.220242. eCollection 2022 Jul.
Quantifying how animals respond to disturbance events bears relevance for understanding consequences to population health. We investigate whether blue whales respond acoustically to naturally occurring episodic noise by examining calling before and after earthquakes (27 040 calls, 32 earthquakes; 27 January-29 June 2016). Two vocalization types were evaluated: New Zealand blue whale song and downswept vocalizations ('D calls'). Blue whales did not alter the number of D calls, D call received level or song intensity following earthquakes (paired -tests, > 0.7 for all). Linear models accounting for earthquake strength and proximity revealed significant relationships between change in calling activity surrounding earthquakes and prior calling activity (D calls: = 0.277, < 0.0001; song: = 0.080, = 0.028); however, these same relationships were true for 'null' periods without earthquakes (D calls: = 0.262, < 0.0001; song: = 0.149, = 0.0002), indicating that the pattern is driven by blue whale calling context regardless of earthquake presence. Our findings that blue whales do not respond to episodic natural noise provide context for interpreting documented acoustic responses to anthropogenic noise sources, including shipping traffic and petroleum development, indicating that they potentially evolved tolerance for natural noise sources but not novel noise from anthropogenic origins.
量化动物对干扰事件的反应方式，对于理解其对种群健康的影响具有重要意义。我们通过检查2016年1月27日至6月29日地震前后的叫声（27040次叫声，32次地震），来研究蓝鲸是否会对自然发生的间歇性噪声产生声学反应。评估了两种发声类型：新西兰蓝鲸之歌和下行扫频发声（“D叫声”）。地震后，蓝鲸的D叫声数量、D叫声接收水平或歌声强度均未改变（配对检验，所有检验的p>0.7）。考虑地震强度和距离的线性模型显示，地震周围叫声活动的变化与之前的叫声活动之间存在显著关系（D叫声：R² = 0.277，p < 0.0001；歌声：R² = 0.080，p = 0.028）；然而，在没有地震的“空白”时期，同样的关系也成立（D叫声：R² = 0.262，p < 0.0001；歌声：R² = 0.149，p = 0.0002），这表明这种模式是由蓝鲸的叫声背景驱动的，与地震是否发生无关。我们发现蓝鲸对间歇性自然噪声没有反应，这为解释记录在案的对人为噪声源（包括航运交通和石油开发）的声学反应提供了背景，表明它们可能已经进化出对自然噪声源的耐受性，但对人为产生的新型噪声没有耐受性。
