News Finding: "These whistles are really important," Bailey said in the statement.
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: The authors of the dolphin study raised similar concerns. "These whistles are really important," Bailey said in the statement. "Nobody wants to live in a noisy neighborhood.
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.