Listening for Large Whales in the Offshore Waters of Alaska
Listening for Large Whales in the Offshore Waters of Alaska
复制标题
在阿拉斯加近海水域聆听大型鲸鱼的声音
DOI：
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发表时间：
2005
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Allan Sauter
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Sean Wiggins;Lisa Munger;Kevin Hardy;Chris Garsha;Allan Sauter
从18世纪到20世纪后期，商业捕鲸严重减少了鲸鱼的数量，以至于1973年所有鲸鱼都被列入了美国最初的濒危物种名单。目标物种包括蓝鲸、长须鲸、座头鲸、右鲸、布莱德鲸和抹香鲸（方框1），尽管精确的数字未知，但在大约200年的时间里，至少有200万头鲸鱼被清除是有充分记录的（Clapham et al. 1999）。尽管这种密集的开发构成了最近备受争议的自上而下的生态系统强迫假说——即所谓的“巨型动物崩溃”假说（施普林格等人，2003年，Mizroch和Rice即将出版），但它也给负责估计这些濒危物种当前种群规模和栖息地保护的科学家和资源管理者带来了挑战。随着冷战的结束和随后美国政府允许一些军事资产双重使用的意愿（Nishimura和Conlon 1993），一个独特的机会出现了，使用美国海军的SOSUS（声音监视系统）水下水听器网络来探测和跟踪鲸鱼。生物学家对这个机会表示欢迎，并在SOSUS中发现了一种前所未有的工具，可以在北大西洋和北太平洋盆地远距离探测蓝鲸和长须鲸的叫声（Clark 1995, Watkins et al. 2000, Stafford et al. 2001），并跟踪发出非典型叫声的鲸鱼个体（Watkins et al. 2004）。在北太平洋，使用SOSUS对濒临灭绝的蓝鲸和长须鲸的叫声进行季节性检测，提供了一种将叫声发生与堪察加半岛外偏远地区的栖息地特征联系起来的方法（Moore等人，2002年），并调查了加利福尼亚外鲸鱼对海洋气候变化的反应（Burtenshaw等人，2004年）。利用SOSUS追踪鲸鱼叫声的季节性发生模式的研究的成功促进了自主记录仪的发展，这种记录仪几乎可以部署在世界海洋的任何地方（Fox et al. 2001, Wiggins 2003）。阿拉斯加州海域使用了两种记录仪：(1)由美国国家海洋和大气管理局（NOAA）太平洋海洋环境实验室（PMEL）开发的自主水听器(Fox et al. 2001; www。pmel.noaa.gov/vents/acoustics/whales/bioacoustics.html)和(2)录音包（ARPs; Wiggins 2003, http://www.cetus.ucsd.edu）。PMEL水听器由一个装有碱性电池的水密钛压力盒、一个带有1到6个硬盘驱动器的数据记录系统和一个水听器组成。ARPs由斯克里普斯海洋研究所海洋物理实验室开发，由一个框架组成，该框架容纳电池，硬盘驱动器和压载物，水听器悬挂在框架上方约7米(m)处。这两款录像机的记录带宽范围从230到880赫兹（Hz）（采样率500到2000赫兹），具体取决于设备，硬盘驱动器存储容量为36到160千兆字节。因此它们是capa-
January 2006 / Vol. 56 No. 1 • BioScience 49 L whales were severely depleted by commercial whaling from the 18th through the late 20th century, to such an extent that all were included in the initial US listing of endangered species in 1973. Targeted species included blue, fin, humpback, right, Bryde’s, and sperm whales (box 1), and although precise numbers are unknown, the removal of at least two million whales over roughly 200 years is well documented (Clapham et al. 1999). While this intensive exploitation underlies the recent controversial hypothesis of topdown ecosystem forcing—the so-called “megafaunal collapse” hypothesis (Springer et al. 2003, Mizroch and Rice forthcoming)—it also sets a challenge to scientists and resource managers charged with estimating current population sizes and habitat protection for these endangered species. With the end of the cold war and the subsequent willingness of the US government to allow dual use of some military assets (Nishimura and Conlon 1993), a unique opportunity arose to use the US Navy’s SOSUS (Sound Surveillance System) underwater hydrophone network to detect and track whales. Biologists welcomed this opportunity, and found in SOSUS an unprecedented tool to detect blue and fin whale calls over long distances in the North Atlantic and North Pacific basins (Clark 1995, Watkins et al. 2000, Stafford et al. 2001) and to track individual whales that produced atypical calls (Watkins et al. 2004). In the North Pacific, the seasonal detection of endangered blue and fin whale calls, using SOSUS, provided a means to correlate call occurrence with habitat features in remote areas off the Kamchatka Peninsula (Moore et al. 2002) and to investigate whale response to ocean climate variability off California (Burtenshaw et al. 2004). The success of research that used SOSUS to track seasonal occurrence patterns in whale calls fostered the development of autonomous recorders that could be deployed virtually anywhere in the world’s oceans (Fox et al. 2001, Wiggins 2003). Two types of recorders have been used off Alaska: (1) autonomous hydrophones developed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) (Fox et al. 2001; www. pmel.noaa.gov/vents/acoustics/whales/bioacoustics.html) and (2) acoustic recording packages (ARPs; Wiggins 2003, http:// cetus.ucsd.edu). The PMEL hydrophone consists of a watertight titanium pressure case containing alkaline batteries, a data logging system with one to six hard disk drives, and a hydrophone outside the case. The ARPs, developed by the Marine Physical Laboratory of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, consist of a frame that holds the batteries, hard disk drives, and ballast, with a hydrophone suspended about 7 meters (m) above the frame. The recording bandwidth for both recorders ranges from 230 to 880 hertz (Hz) (sample rates 500 to 2000 Hz) depending on the unit, with hard disk drive storage capacity of 36 to 160 gigabytes. They are thus capa-