Soundbites is a weekly (biweekly, occasionally) feature of the coolest, newest bioacoustics, soundscape, and acoustic research, in bite-size form. Plus other cool stuff having to do with sound.
Frequency and amplitude can be used to identify individual wild wolves: these researchers developed a code that was able to identify captive Eastern wolves by their howls. Naturally, they wanted to see if it was possible to do a similar identification on wild wolves, and lo and behold, it worked! They used both frequency and amplitude to identify wolves; the use of amplitude is especially interesting. This has really great implications for use of acoustic monitoring in wolf surveys.
Social mole rats have more complex vocal repertoire than solitary mole rats: did you know mole rats had vocal repertoires? I didn’t. There are social species and solitary species, and here the idea is that sociality necessitates a more complex vocal repertoire than solitary life. Interesting implications for communication across lots of social species.
Fun link of the week: The Times gets a bout of nostalgia and fills its newsroom with the sounds of typewriters. Maybe it’ll make their reporters more productive…or just infinitely more annoyed.
It’s been a busy week! Holger and I were headed to the East Coast for a graduate summer workshop on marine bioacoustics (SeaBASS) and since we were coming all this way we decided to make a few extra business stops beforehand.
View from the bridge next to our hotel in Manteo, NC.The “super model” of wolves: sleek, lean, and all legs. Photo courtesy of USFW (https://www.flickr.com/photos/trackthepack/)
The beginning of the week took us to Manteo, North Carolina, where we met up with Dr. Becky Harrison, Assistant Coordinator of the US Fish and Wildlife’s Red Wolf Recovery Program (RWRP). Red wolves (Canis rufus) are critically endangered and can only be found in the wild in Northeastern North Carolina. About 100 wolves currently inhabit the area, all because of ongoing recovery efforts including captive breeding and release.
We’ve been talking with Becky about potentially collaborating with the RWRP to collar red wolves with our Carnivore Acoustic Tag, allowing us to learn about red wolf vocal behavior, prey preference, and even the potential impacts of noise. It was great to meet Becky and the knowledgeable field team to learn more about the program and discuss potential applications and tag development, including special considerations for red wolves and their wetland habitat. She even took us out to see a few captive individuals and see the Pocosin (I had to look up what that was). Be sure to check out RWRP to learn more about the program!!
This guy is wearing a VHF collar so the wildlife biologists can check in on him. Photo courtesy of USFWS (https://www.flickr.com/photos/trackthepack/)
Sometimes in grad school you learn things that have nothing to do with your research.
Or should I say he is working on the tag improvements while Holger and I are improving our wildlife handling skills? There were two baby raccoons that had been trapped in David’s chimney for two days that Holger decided had to be rescued ASAP. Sometimes science has to wait!! I’m happy to report we got them out and released them last night.
We tried explaining that we were trying to help them but they didn’t really believe us.
**East coast bias is a term used in sports describing the phenomenon where east coast teams often receive greater respect and recognition than west coast teams. This stems from a variety of reasons including team histories and the three hour time difference. Fortunately such a bias does not seem to exist in the world of bioacoustics!
