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Measuring inter-pulse intervals in sperm whale clicks: consistency of automatic estimation methods.
Ricardo Antunes1, Luke Rendell, Jonathan Gordon
1Sea Mammal Research Unit, Scottish Oceans Institute, Gatty Marine Laboratory, University of St Andrews, St Andrews KY16 8LB, United Kingdom. rna@st-andrews.ac.uk
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
|December 2, 2010
Summary
Sperm whale click inter-pulse intervals (IPIs) estimate whale size. New automated methods, particularly autocorrelation averaging, accurately measure IPIs, rivaling manual analysis for reliable whale size estimation.
Area of Science:
- Marine biology
- Bioacoustics
- Animal acoustics
Background:
- Sperm whale clicks possess a multi-pulsed structure.
- The inter-pulse interval (IPI) correlates with the whale's sound production organ size, enabling acoustic size estimation.
- Off-axis effects can complicate accurate pulse identification.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and compare automatic methods for measuring sperm whale click IPIs.
- To enhance the objectivity and accuracy of IPI measurements, especially for ambiguous single clicks.
- To improve acoustic estimation of individual sperm whale sizes.
Main Methods:
- Developed two automatic IPI measurement methods: waveform averaging and autocorrelation averaging.
- Compared the performance of automated methods against manual measurements and previous techniques.
- Utilized time-series analysis of sperm whale clicks to identify time-invariant pulses.
Main Results:
- Manual measurement by experienced operators yielded the most self-consistent IPI estimates.
- Autocorrelation averaging demonstrated the best performance among automated methods, closely matching manual consistency.
- Cepstrum averaging succeeded where autocorrelation averaging failed on some recordings.
Conclusions:
- Automated IPI measurement methods offer objective and potentially more accurate estimations of sperm whale size.
- Autocorrelation averaging is a highly effective automated technique for IPI measurement.
- Employing both autocorrelation and cepstrum averaging methods and selecting the superior result is recommended for robust IPI estimation.
