Charrier Isabelle, Huetz Chloé, Prevost Léa, Dendrinos Panagiotis, Karamanlidis Alexandros A
Institut des Neurosciences Paris-Saclay, Université Paris-Saclay, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UMR 9197, 91400 Saclay, France.
MOm/Hellenic Society for the Study and Protection of the Monk Seal, Solomou Str. 18, 10682 Athens, Greece.
Animals (Basel). 2023 Mar 14;13(6):1048. doi: 10.3390/ani13061048.
The Mediterranean monk seal is one of the most endangered pinnipeds in the world, and is classified as "Endangered" by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Any additional knowledge about the species is invaluable to its effective conservation. In the present study, we deployed an autonomous underwater recorder in an important reproductive area of the Mediterranean monk seal in Greece to describe its underwater vocal repertoire. Over the 330 h of continuous recordings, 9231 vocalizations were labelled as potentially produced by Mediterranean monk seals, and 1694 good quality calls were analyzed. We defined 18 call types divided into three main call categories: harmonic, noisy, and pulsative calls. We also described the soundscape in which this endangered species lives and found that human activities around the two main pupping caves had a strong impact on the sonic environment of these seals: the noise level produced by boat traffic was high, and occurred on an hourly (25 to 50 min/hour) and daily basis (10.8 to 16.9 h/day). Such high levels of noise might not only impair the communication of the species, but also impact its survival, as chronic noise can induce physiological stress.
地中海僧海豹是世界上最濒危的鳍足类动物之一，被国际自然保护联盟列为“濒危”物种。任何关于该物种的额外知识对于其有效保护都非常宝贵。在本研究中，我们在希腊地中海僧海豹的一个重要繁殖区域部署了一个自主水下记录器，以描述其水下发声曲目。在连续记录的330小时内，9231次发声被标记为可能由地中海僧海豹发出，并且对1694次高质量叫声进行了分析。我们定义了18种叫声类型，分为三个主要叫声类别：谐波叫声、嘈杂叫声和脉动叫声。我们还描述了这种濒危物种生存的声景，发现两个主要产仔洞穴周围的人类活动对这些海豹的声学环境有很大影响：船只交通产生的噪音水平很高，且每小时（每小时25至50分钟）和每天（每天10.8至16.9小时）都会出现。如此高的噪音水平不仅可能损害该物种的交流，还可能影响其生存，因为长期噪音会诱发生理压力。
