Department of Oceanography
Naval Postgraduate School
Monterey, CA 93943-5000

October 6, 2008

Oceanography Seminar

SPEAKER:

Dr. Melissa Soldevilla

AFFILIATION:

Scripps Institute of Oceanography

TITLE:

Risso's and Pacific White-sided Dolphins in the Southern California Bight: Using Echolocation Clicks to Study Dolphin Ecology

DATE:

Friday, October 10, 2008

TIME:

1:00 PM

PLACE:

Spanagel 316

ABSTRACT

This study examines the efficacy of using passive acoustic monitoring of dolphin echolocation clicks to study ecological questions about spatial and temporal distribution patterns and the influence of environmental variability on dolphin activity. The groundwork is laid by developing acoustic species classification methods based on dolphin echolocation clicks recorded during concurrent visual and acoustic surveys Unique spectral banding patterns are discovered only for Risso's and Pacific white-sided dolphins and two distinct click types are found for Pacific white-sided dolphins. Next, click bouts from autonomous recordings from six sites in the Southern California Bight are classified to species and diel, seasonal, and interannual variability in click activity are described. Finally, the ability to predict variability in click activity is examined with respect to the environment by building generalized additive models. Remotely-sensed environmental variables are modeled with respect to current time and time-lagged data to examine questions about the underlying oceanographic processes which may lead to dolphin occurrence. The inclusion of time-lagged environmental data can improve predictive models and allows a realistic time frame for conservation and management mitigation efforts.

NOTE: Gate access requires 48 hour notice. Please notify Susan (656-2553) if you need to be placed on the gate access list. For more information about the NPS Oceanography Department Seminar Series, see http://www.oc.nps.navy.mil/seminars.