Behavioral response studies (BRSs) aim to enhance our understanding of the behavior changes made by animals in response to specific exposure levels of different stimuli, often presented in an increasing dosage. Here, we ...

Ramp-up or soft-start procedures (i.e., gradual increase in the source level) are used to mitigate the effect of sonar sound on marine mammals, although no one to date has tested whether ramp-up procedures are effective ...

Social interactions among animals can influence their response to disturbance. We investigated responses of long-finned pilot whales to killer whale sound playbacks and two anthropogenic sources of disturbance: tagging ...

Eight experimentally controlled exposures to 1−2 kHz or 6−7 kHz sonar signals were conducted with four killer whale groups. The source level and proximity of the source were increased during each exposure in order to reveal ...

A key issue when investigating effects of anthropogenic noise on cetacean behavior is to identify the biological significance of the responses. Predator presence can be considered a natural high-level disturbance stimulus ...

Anti-predator strategies are often defined as ‘flight’ or ‘fight’, based upon prey anatomical adaptations for size, morphology and weapons, as well as observed behaviours in the presence of predators. The humpback whale ...

Long-finned pilot whales (Globicephala melas) are highly social cetaceans that live in matrilineal groups and acquire their prey during deep foraging dives. We tagged individual pilot whales to record their diving behaviour. ...

The potential effects of exposing marine mammals to military sonar is a current concern. Dose–response relationships are useful for predicting potential environmental impacts of specific operations. To reveal behavioral ...

Although northern bottlenose whales were the most heavily hunted beaked whale, we have little information about this species in its remote habitat of the North Atlantic Ocean. Underwater anthropogenic noise and disruption ...