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    Effects of vessel traffic and underwater noise on the movement, behaviour and vocalisations of bottlenose dolphins in an urbanised estuary

    Access Status
    Open access via publisher
    Authors
    Marley, S.
    Salgado Kent, Chandra
    Erbe, Christine
    Parnum, Iain
    Date
    2017
    Type
    Journal Article
    
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Citation
    Marley, S. and Salgado Kent, C. and Erbe, C. and Parnum, I. 2017. Effects of vessel traffic and underwater noise on the movement, behaviour and vocalisations of bottlenose dolphins in an urbanised estuary. Scientific Reports. 7 (1): pp. 1-14.
    Source Title
    Scientific Reports
    DOI
    10.1038/s41598-017-13252-z
    ISSN
    2045-2322
    School
    Centre for Marine Science and Technology
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/57716
    Collection
    • Curtin Research Publications
    Abstract

    © 2017 The Author(s). Abstarct: The potential disturbance of dolphins from tourism boats has been widely discussed in the literature, in terms of both physical vessel presence and associated underwater noise. However, less attention has been paid to the potential impact of non-tourism vessels, despite these being much more widespread and occurring in greater numbers throughout coastal dolphin habitats. The Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin (T. aduncus) community using the Fremantle Inner Harbour, Western Australia, is exposed to high levels of vessel traffic. To investigate whether behavioural responses could be occurring, a non-invasive combination of visual and acoustic monitoring was conducted using a theodolite and an autonomous acoustic logger. Dolphins significantly increased their average movement speeds in high vessel densities, but only for some activity states. Behavioural budgets also changed in the presence of vessels, with animals spending greater time travelling and less time resting or socialising. Finally, multiple whistle characteristics varied with rising levels of broadband noise, and other contextual variables. Despite being acoustically specialised for higher frequencies, dolphins had the strongest acoustic variation during low-frequency noise. This study highlights the complexity of disturbance responses in this species, confirming the need for consideration of both surface and acoustic behaviour alongside appropriate contextual data.

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