Population Consequences of Acoustic Disturbance of Marine Mammals
Abstract
The long-term goal of this project is to improve understanding of how effects of marine sound on marine mammals transfer between behavior and life functions, and between life functions and vital rates. This understanding will facilitate assessment of the population-level effects of anthropogenic sound on marine mammals. In 2005, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences convened a National Research Council (NRC) committee that examined how the behavior of marine mammals responds to anthropogenic sound. The committee provided a conceptual framework to structure future studies of the potential population-level effects of changes in behavior of marine mammals. Developments since the committee issued its report, and advances in research that were not considered explicitly by the committee, made it possible to transform the conceptual framework into a more formal model structure. In particular, evolutionary biologists developed an approach for investigating trait-mediated interactions, which describe how the behavior of individuals affects the dynamics of interacting populations. Additionally, new developments in computationally intensive analytic methods made it possible to fit trait-mediated interactions to empirical data with techniques such as hierarchical Bayesian analysis. The NRC committee identified several levels at which anthropogenic sound may affect marine mammals, including behavior (e.g., diving, resting, orientation), life functions (e.g., feeding, breeding, migrating), vital rates (e.g. adult survival, reproduction), and populations (e.g., growth rate, structure, extirpation). The Office of Naval Research is addressing the potential behavioral response of animals to sound exposure through controlled-exposure experiments. Knowledge of how effects transfer between behavior and life functions, and between life functions and vital rates, is limited.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 30, 2010
- Accession Number
- ADA541775
Entities
People
- Erica Fleishman
Organizations
- University of California, Santa Barbara