News Finding: The researchers found that ambient noise had a significant effect on the whistle characteristics.
Paper Finding: Increases in ship noise, both within and below the dolphins' call bandwidth, resulted in higher dolphin whistle frequencies and a reduction in whistle contour complexity, an acoustic feature associated with individual identification.
News Context: "Nobody wants to live in a noisy neighborhood. The researchers found that ambient noise had a significant effect on the whistle characteristics. With background noise, such as the low frequency chug-chugging of a ship's engine, their usually complex whistle signatures flatlined.
Paper Context: Elevated ambient noise levels were mainly caused by ship noise. Increases in ship noise, both within and below the dolphins' call bandwidth, resulted in higher dolphin whistle frequencies and a reduction in whistle contour complexity, an acoustic feature associated with individual identification. Consequently, the noiseinduced simplification of dolphin whistles may reduce the information content in these acoustic signals and decrease effective communication, parent -offspring proximity or group cohesion.