Oceanographic barriers, divergence, and admixture: Phylogeography and taxonomy of two putative subspecies of short-finned pilot whale.

Genomic phylogeography plays an important role in describing evolutionary processes and their geographic, ecological, or cultural drivers. These drivers are often poorly understood in marine environments, which have fewer obvious barriers to mixing than terrestrial environments. Taxonomic uncertainty of some taxa (e.g., cetaceans), due to the difficulty in obtaining morphological data, can hamper our understanding of these processes. One such taxon, the short-finned pilot whale, is recognized as a single global species but includes at least two distinct morphological forms described from stranding and drive hunting in Japan, the "Naisa" and "Shiho" forms. Using samples (n = 735) collected throughout their global range, we examine phylogeographic patterns of divergence by comparing mitogenomes and nuclear SNP loci. Our results suggest three types within the species: an Atlantic Ocean type, a western/central Pacific and Indian Ocean (Naisa) type, and an eastern Pacific Ocean and northern Japan (Shiho) type. mtDNA control region differentiation indicates these three types form two subspecies, separated by the East Pacific Barrier: Shiho short-finned pilot whale, in the eastern Pacific Ocean and northern Japan, and Naisa short-finned pilot whale, throughout the remainder of the species' distribution. Our data further indicate two diverging populations within the Naisa subspecies, in the Atlantic Ocean and western/central Pacific and Indian Oceans, separated by the Benguela Barrier off South Africa. This study reveals a process of divergence and speciation within a globally-distributed, mobile marine predator, and indicates the importance of the East Pacific Barrier to this evolutionary process.

Acoustic properties of a short-finned pilot whale head with insight into temperature influence on tissues' sound velocity.

Acoustic properties of odontocete head tissues, including sound velocity, density, and acoustic impedance, are important parameters to understand dynamics of its echolocation. In this paper, acoustic properties of head tissues from a freshly dead short-finned pilot whale (Globicephala macrorhynchus) were reconstructed using computed tomography (CT) and ultrasound. The animal's forehead soft tissues were cut into 188 ordered samples. Sound velocity, density, and acoustic impedance of each sample were either directly measured or calculated by formula, and Hounsfield Unit values (HUs) were obtained from CT scanning. According to relationships between HUs and sound velocity, HUs and density, as well as HUs and acoustic impedance, distributions of acoustic properties in the head were reconstructed. The inner core in the melon with low-sound velocity and low-density is an evidence for its potential function of sound focusing. The increase in acoustic impedance of forehead tissues from inner core to outer layer may be important for the acoustic impedance matching between the outer layer tissue and seawater. In addition, temperature dependence of sound velocity in soft tissues was also examined. The results provide a guide to the simulation of the sound emission of the short-finned pilot whale.

Vocal repertoire of long-finned pilot whales (Globicephala melas) in northern Norway.

The knowledge of the vocal repertoire of pilot whales is very limited. In this paper, the vocal repertoire of long-finned pilot whales recorded during different encounters in the Vestfjord in northern Norway between November 2006 and August 2010 are described. Sounds were analysed using two different methods: (1) an observer-based audio-visual inspection of FFT-derived spectrograms, with which, besides a general variety of clicks, buzzes, nonharmonic sounds, and whistles, 129 different distinct call types and 25 subtypes were distinguished. These call types included pulsed calls and discrete structured whistles varying from simple to highly complex structures composed of several segments and elements. In addition, ultrasonic whistles previously not described for pilot whales were found. In addition to the diversity of single calls, call sequences consisting of repetitions and combinations of specific call types were recorded and (2) a parametric approach that permitted the confirmation of the high variability in pilot whale call structures was developed. It is concluded that the pilot whale vocal repertoire is among the most complex for the mammalian species and the high structural variability, along with call repetitions and combinations, require a closer investigation to judge their importance for vocal communication.

Classification of large acoustic datasets using machine learning and crowdsourcing: application to whale calls.

Vocal communication is a primary communication method of killer and pilot whales, and is used for transmitting a broad range of messages and information for short and long distance. The large variation in call types of these species makes it challenging to categorize them. In this study, sounds recorded by audio sensors carried by ten killer whales and eight pilot whales close to the coasts of Norway, Iceland, and the Bahamas were analyzed using computer methods and citizen scientists as part of the Whale FM project. Results show that the computer analysis automatically separated the killer whales into Icelandic and Norwegian whales, and the pilot whales were separated into Norwegian long-finned and Bahamas short-finned pilot whales, showing that at least some whales from these two locations have different acoustic repertoires that can be sensed by the computer analysis. The citizen science analysis was also able to separate the whales to locations by their sounds, but the separation was somewhat less accurate compared to the computer method.

Combining whistle acoustic parameters to discriminate Mediterranean odontocetes during passive acoustic monitoring.

Acoustic observation can complement visual observation to more effectively monitor occurrence and distribution of marine mammals. For effective acoustic censuses, calibration methods must be determined by joint visual and acoustic studies. Research is still needed in the field of acoustic species identification, particularly for smaller odontocetes. From 1994 to 2012, whistles of four odontocete species were recorded in different areas of the Mediterranean Sea to determine how reliably these vocalizations can be classified to species. Recordings were attributed to species by simultaneous visual observation. The results of this study highlight that the frequency parameters, which are linked to physical features of animals, show lower variability than modulation parameters, which are likely to be more dependent on complex eco-ethological contexts. For all the studied species, minimum and maximum frequencies were linearly correlated with body size. DFA and Classification Tree Analysis (CART) show that these parameters were the most important for classifying species; however, both statistical methods highlighted the need for combining them with the number of contour minima and contour maxima for correct classification. Generally, DFA and CART results reflected both phylogenetic distance (especially for common and striped dolphins) and the size of the species.

Hearing threshold measurements of five stranded short-finned pilot whales (Globicephala macrorhynchus).

On May 5, 2011, 23 short-finned pilot whales, Globicephala macrorhynchus, were stranded along the coastline near Cudjoe Key, FL. Five animals (two adult females, two juvenile females, and an adult male) were transported to a rehabilitation facility in Key Largo, FL. Auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) were recorded in response to amplitude modulated tone pips modulated at 1000 Hz. AEP thresholds were determined at 10, 20, 40, 80, and 120 kHz for the four females. However, the adult male was euthanized prior to testing. Short-finned pilot whales had peak sensitivity at lower frequencies than other odontocetes such as bottlenose dolphins. Greatest sensitivity was around 40 kHz for all whales, while thresholds for the two adult females were 25-61 dB higher at 80 kHz than the juveniles. Click evoked potentials were similar between the four whales and comparable to other echolocating odontocetes. Click evoked potential data from a fifth short-finned pilot whale that had stranded in Curacao showed no response. These findings add to the limited database of pilot whale (short- and long-finned) hearing studies, of which there are only two others [Schlundt et al. (2011). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 129, 1111-1116 and Pacini et al. (2010). J. Exp. Biol. 213, 3138-3143].