Disturbance-specific social responses in long-finned pilot whales, Globicephala melas.

ABSTRACT: Social interactions among animals can influence their response to disturbance. We investigated responses of long-finned pilot whales to killer whale sound playbacks and two anthropogenic sources of disturbance: tagging effort and naval sonar exposure. The acoustic scene and diving behaviour of tagged individuals were recorded along with the social behaviour of their groups. All three disturbance types resulted in larger group sizes, increasing social cohesion during disturbance. However, the nature and magnitude of other responses differed between disturbance types. Tagging effort resulted in a clear increase in synchrony and a tendency to reduce surface logging and to become silent (21% of cases), whereas pilot whales increased surface resting during sonar exposure. Killer whale sounds el

SUBMITTER: Visser F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4926103 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature