IMIS - Marine Research Groups

This archive contains data on echolocation clicks of Blainville's beaked whale (Mesoplodon densirostris) recorded at AUTEC during a 6-day period in spring 2005. The data were used in estimating M. densirostris density as documented in the paper Marques et al. (2009). There are data files containing click counts per minute per hydrophone, files containing numbers of false positive detections from a manual analysis, and files giving information about georeferenced tracks of tagged whales and associated vocalization timings. Each record (observation) represents number of clicks detected during one minute at one of 82 hydrophones. Species identification for automatic click detections is unknown and are assigned as Odontocete. Manually verified click detections have been assigned to appropriate family or genus by a trained acoustician for a sample of thirty 10-minute files. Manually-verified non-biological sources are recorded to species nan. Some automated detections may be from non-biological sources; False detection analysis suggest this will occur <3% of the time. The effect of occasional system tests and differences in frequency response of hydrophones on automated detection and classification has not been quantified. Time zone is GMT. Hydrophone locations are only approximate. Related datasets from tagged beaked whales are available at http://seamap.env.duke.edu/dataset/685 and http://seamap.env.duke.edu/dataset/722. Original data can be downloaded at http://www.creem.st-and.ac.uk/decaf/decaf-data-files under Case Study 3: Beaked whale data Dataset credit = Density Estimation of Cetaceans from passive Acoustic Fixed sensors (DECAF) (http://www.creem.st-and.ac.uk/decaf/)