Stereotyped Calling Patterns of a Male Weddell Seal (Leptonychotes weddellii)

From the abstract of the attached paper:

Underwater calling behaviour between breathing bouts of a single adult male Weddell seal (Leptonychotes weddellii) was examined with respect to call type and timing late in the breeding season at Davis Station, Antarctica. Underwater calls and breathing sounds were recorded on 1 and 8 December 1997. Thirty-seven sequences of calls prior to surfacing to breathe and 36 post-submerging sets of calls were analysed with respect to probability of call type occurrence and timing. Dives were 461 plus or minus 259 seconds (mean plus or minus standard deviation). The seal called every 29.7 plus or minus 56.2 seconds throughout a dive. The first call after submerging was usually (n = 29 of 36) a low frequency (less than 0.8 kHz) growl. Three patterns of three- to five-call type sequences were made following 28 of 36 breathing bouts. Call type patterns after submerging exhibited fewer different sequences than those before surfacing (chi-squared = 61.42, DF = 4, p less than 0.000001). The call usage patterns before surfacing were diverse and did not indicate when the seal was going to surface, a time when he would be vulnerable to attack from below. Our findings suggest the hypotheses that territorial male Weddell seals call throughout each dive and use stereotyped call patterns to identify themselves while vocally asserting dominance.

This work was completed as part of ASAC project 2122 (ASAC_2122).

The fields in this dataset are:

Tape number

Sequence per tape

Sequence entire data

Call types

Count since last breath

Last breathing bout number

Count prior to next breath

Time in tape (seconds)

End time of last breath

Start time of next breath

Time since dive

The 'sequence' relates to the sequence of call types that are given between the end of the last breath of a breathing bout and the beginning of the first breath the next time the seal surfaces to breathe. Essentially the report relates to the stereotyped nature of the call types, especially just after the dominant male dives after finishing breathing.

Each time the animal surfaced, that was identified as a breathing bout. They are numbered sequentially. At the very start of the data set the seal had to surface before the breathing bout could be counted (as number 1). This procedure enabled us to identify the order and timing of the calls that occurred immediately before and immediately after each breathing bout. Thus, the 'count prior to the next breath' gives the order of the calls before the seal surfaced to breathe again (third last, second last, last,).

The call types were analysed with respect to the following pattern:

third last, second last, last, breathing bout, first, second, third, etc. to

third last, second last, last, next breathing bout.

Identification info

Alternate title: Stereotyped Calling Patterns of a Male Weddell Seal (Leptonychotes weddellii)

Date (Publication): 2006-08-16

Edition: 1

Citation identifier

Dataset DOI

Title: Information and documentation - Digital object identifier system

Date (Publication): 2012-04-23

Citation identifier: ISO 26324:2012

Citation identifier: doi:10.4225/15/55EFCFF0E51F5

Originator

Terhune, J.M. and Dell'Apa, A.

Publisher

Australian Antarctic Data Centre

Principal investigator

TERHUNE, JOHN MOORE

Department of Biology

PO Box 5050

University of New Brunswick

Saint John

New Brunswick

E2L 4L5

Canada

+1 506 648 5633

+1 506 648 5811 (facsimile)

Principal investigator

DELL' APA, ANDREA

Ancona University

Department of Marine Biology

Ancona

Italy

Collaborator

TERHUNE, JOHN MOORE

Department of Biology

PO Box 5050

University of New Brunswick

Saint John

New Brunswick

E2L 4L5

Canada

+1 506 648 5633

+1 506 648 5811 (facsimile)

Collaborator

DELL' APA, ANDREA

Ancona University

Department of Marine Biology

Ancona

Italy

Name: CAASM Metadata

Website: https://data.aad.gov.au/metadata/records/ASAC_2122-5

Status: Completed

Custodian

AU/AADC > Australian Antarctic Data Centre, Australia - AADC, DATA OFFICER (DATA CENTER CONTACT)

Australian Antarctic Division

203 Channel Highway

Kingston

Tasmania

7050

Australia

+61 3 6232 3244

+61 3 6232 3351 (facsimile)

Topic category

Biota
Oceans

Extent

Description: Temporal Coverage

Temporal extent

TimePeriod: 1997-12-01 1997-12-08

Extent

Description: Vertical Extent - Depth

Vertical element

Minimum value: 0

Maximum value: 23

Identifier: urn:x-ogc:def:cs:EPSG:6498

Name: Vertical CS. Axis: depth (D). Orientation: down. UoM: m.

Identifier: urn:x-ogc:def:axis:EPSG:113

Name: depth

Title: Stereotyped calling patterns of the male Wedell Seal (Leptonychotes weddellii)

Date (Publication): 2006

Citation identifier: 32

Author

Terhune, J.M. and Dell'Apa, A.

Name: Aquatic Mammals

Issue identification: 2

Page: 175-181