During the breeding season, the underwater vocalizations and calling rates of adult male leopard seals are highly stereotyped. In contrast, sub-adult males have more variable acoustic behavior. Although adult males produce only five stereotyped broadcast calls as part of their long-range underwater breeding displays the sub-adults have a greater repertoire including the adult-like broadcast calls, as well as variants of these. Whether this extended repertoire has a social function is unknown due to the paucity of behavioral data for this species. The broadcast calls of the sub-adults are less stereotyped in their acoustic characteristics and they have a more variable calling rate. These age-related differences have major implications for geographic variation studies, where the acoustic behavior of different populations are compared, as well as for acoustic surveying studies, where numbers of calls are used to indicate numbers of individuals present. Sampling regimes which unknowingly include recordings from sub-adult animals will artificially exaggerate differences between populations and numbers of calling animals. The acoustic behavior of sub-adult and adult male leopard seals were significantly different and although this study does not show evidence that these differences reflect vocal learning in the male leopard seal it does suggest that contextual learning may be present.
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July 2007
July 01 2007
Age-related differences in the acoustic characteristics of male leopard seals, Hydrurga leptonyx
Tracey L. Rogers
Tracey L. Rogers
a)
Australian Marine Mammal Research Centre, Zoological Parks Board of NSW and Veterinary Faculty,
University of Sydney
, Australia, P.O. Box 20, Mosman, New South Wales, 2088, Australia
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Tracey L. Rogers
a)
Australian Marine Mammal Research Centre, Zoological Parks Board of NSW and Veterinary Faculty,
University of Sydney
, Australia, P.O. Box 20, Mosman, New South Wales, 2088, Australiaa)
Electronic mail: [email protected]
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 122, 596–605 (2007)
Article history
Received:
August 03 2006
Accepted:
April 13 2007
Citation
Tracey L. Rogers; Age-related differences in the acoustic characteristics of male leopard seals, Hydrurga leptonyx. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 1 July 2007; 122 (1): 596–605. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.2736976
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