Comparative bioacoustics: a roadmap for quantifying and comparing animal sounds across diverse taxa.

Animals produce a wide array of sounds with highly variable acoustic structures. It is possible to understand the causes and consequences of this variation across taxa with phylogenetic comparative analyses. Acoustic and evolutionary analyses are rapidly increasing in sophistication such that choosing appropriate acoustic and evolutionary approaches is increasingly difficult.

Seasonal movements of Gulf of Mexico sperm whales following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the limitations of impact assessments.

As part of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Natural Resource Damage Assessment in the Gulf of Mexico, we conducted a large passive acoustic survey across the eastern Gulf continental shelf edge to assess impacts to sperm whale population. In the months immediately after the spill, sperm whale occurrence was significantly higher in areas closest to the spill. Over the following seasons in 2010-2011, we documented cyclical patterns of decreased and increased occurrence suggesting that this population exhibits a seasonal occurrence pattern in the region, with seasonal movements to other regions, and not likely directly influenced by the oil spill.

Evolution of correlated complexity in the radically different courtship signals of birds-of-paradise.

Ornaments used in courtship often vary wildly among species, reflecting the evolutionary interplay between mate preference functions and the constraints imposed by natural selection. Consequently, understanding the evolutionary dynamics responsible for ornament diversification has been a longstanding challenge in evolutionary biology. However, comparing radically different ornaments across species, as well as different classes of ornaments within species, is a profound challenge to understanding diversification of sexual signals.

Seasonal and geographical patterns of fin whale song in the western North Atlantic Ocean.

Male fin whales, Balaenoptera physalus, produce a song consisting of 20 Hz notes at regularly spaced time intervals. Previous studies identified regional differences in fin whale internote intervals (INI), but seasonal changes within populations have not been closely examined. To understand the patterns of fin whale song in the western North Atlantic, the seasonal abundance and acoustic features of fin whale song are measured from two years of archival passive acoustic recordings at two representative locations: Massachusetts Bay and New York Bight.

Acoustically detected year-round presence of right whales in an urbanized migration corridor.

Species' conservation relies on understanding their seasonal habitats and migration routes. North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis), listed as endangered under the U.S.