Medium-term acoustic monitoring of small cetaceans in Patagonia, Chile

PeerJ

article

Susannah Buchan¹  Julie Patris⁴  Franck Malige⁵  Madeleine Hamame⁶  Hervé Glotin⁵  Valentin Barchasz⁷  Valentin Gies⁷  Sebastian Marzetti⁷ 

[1] Center for Oceanographic Research COPAS COASTAL, Universidad de Concepción;Departamento de Oceanografía, Universidad de Concepción;Centro de Estudios Avanzado en Zonas Aridas;Université d’Aix-Marseille;Laboratoire Informatique et Systèmes;Centro de Investigación en Ecosistemas de la Patagonia;Scientific Microsystems for Internet of Things ,(SMIoT), Université de Toulon et du Var;Institut Matériaux Microélectronique Nanosciences de Provence

关键词: Bioacoustics;    Remote sensing;    Patagonian ecosystem;    Coastal small cetaceans;    Chilean dolphin;    C-POD;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.15292

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

Coastal dolphins and porpoises such as the Chilean dolphin (Cephalorhynchus eutropia), the Peale’s dolphin (Lagenorhynchus australis), and the Burmeister’s porpoise (Phocoena spinipinnis) inhabit the remote areas of Chilean Patagonia. Human development is growing fast in these parts and may constitute a serious threat to such poorly known species. It is thus urgent to develop new tools to try and study these cryptic species and find out more about their behavior, population levels, and habits. These odontocetes emit narrow-band high-frequency (NBHF) clicks and efforts have been made to characterize precisely their acoustic production. Passive acoustic monitoring is a common way to study these animals. Nevertheless, as the signal frequency is usually higher than 100 kHz, storage problems are acute and do not allow for long-term monitoring. The solutions for recording NBHF clicks are usually twofold: either short duration, opportunistic recording from a small boat in presence of the animals (short-term monitoring) or long-term monitoring using devices including a click detector and registering events rather than sound. We suggest, as another possibility, medium-term monitoring, arguing that today’s devices have reached a level of performance allowing for a few days of continual recording even at these extremely high frequencies and in difficult conditions, combined with a long-term click detector. As an example, during 2021, we performed a quasi-continuous recording for one week with the Qualilife High-Blue recorder anchored in a fjord near Puerto Cisnes, Region de Aysen, Chile. We detected more than 13,000 clicks, grouped in 22 periods of passing animals. Our detected clicks are quite similar to precedent results but, due to the large number of clicks recorded, we find a larger variability of parameters. Several rapid sequences of clicks (buzz) were found in the recordings and their features are consistent with previous studies: on average they have a larger bandwidth and a lower peak frequency than the usual clicks. We also installed in the same place a click detector (C-POD) and the two devices compare well and show the same number and duration of periods of animals presence. Passages of odontocetes were happening on average each three hours. We thus confirm the high site fidelity for the species of dolphins emitting NBHF clicks present in this zone. Finally, we confirm that the combined use of recording and detection devices is probably a good alternative to study these poorly known species in remote areas.

【 授权许可】

CC BY