Title
High-amplitude vocalizations of male northern elephant seals associated ambient noise on a breeding rookery
Author(s)
Southall, Brandon L.;Casey, Caroline;Holt, Marla;Insley, Stephen;Reichmuth, Colleen
Published
2019
Publisher
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Abstract
dB. Further, these seal rookeries exhibit high variability in ambient noise (in terms of both spectrum and amplitude) from biotic and environmental sources. Finally, males sampled did not adjust call amplitude to compensate for higher background noise levels and thus did not exhibit a Lombard effect. These findings reinforce the view that the remarkable vocalizations of male northern elephant seals serve as rigid and powerful signals that convey individual identity within noisy breeding colonies rather than as honest indicators of size, status, or motivation.
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PUB24965