From Australian Oceans Data Network
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Geographic variations in underwater male Weddell seal Trills suggest breeding area fidelity

Created 24/06/2025

Updated 24/06/2025

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Adult Weddell seals (Leptonychotes weddellii) exhibit site fidelity to where they first breed but juveniles, and perhaps transient adult males, may disperse from their natal location. If there is mixing between adjacent breeding groups, we would expect that common vocalisations would exhibit clinal patterns. Underwater Trill vocalisations of male Weddell seals at Mawson, Davis, Casey, McMurdo Sound, Neumayer and Drescher Inlet separated by ca. 500 to greater than 9,000 km, were examined for evidence of clinal variation. Trills are only emitted by males and have a known territorial defence function. Trills from Davis and Mawson, ca. 630 km apart, were distinct from each other and exhibited the greatest number of unique frequency contour patterns. The acoustic features (duration, waveform, frequency contour) of Trills from Neumayer and Drescher Inlet, ca. 500 km apart, were more distinct from each other than they were from the other four locations. General Discriminant Analysis and Classification Tree Analysis correctly classified 65.8 and 76.9% of the Trills to the correct location. The classification errors assigned more locations to sites greater than 630 km away than to nearest neighbours. Weddell seal Trills exhibit geographic variation but there is no evidence of a clinal pattern. This suggests that males remain close to single breeding areas throughout their lifetime. This work was completed as part of ASAC project 1132 and 2122 (ASAC_1132, ASAC_2122).

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Additional Info

Field Value
Title Geographic variations in underwater male Weddell seal Trills suggest breeding area fidelity
Language eng
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/ab4d0831-2503-472f-8c8d-d4513c32859d
Contact Point
Australian Ocean Data Network
metadata@aad.gov.au
Reference Period 01/10/1991 - 31/12/2006
Geospatial Coverage
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
{
  "coordinates": [
    [
      [
        -19.0,
        -78.0
      ],
      [
        166.0,
        -78.0
      ],
      [
        166.0,
        -66.0
      ],
      [
        -19.0,
        -66.0
      ],
      [
        -19.0,
        -78.0
      ]
    ]
  ],
  "type": "Polygon"
}
Data Portal Australian Oceans Data Network

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on Australian Oceans Data Network "Geographic variations in underwater male Weddell seal Trills suggest breeding area fidelity". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://catalogue.aodn.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/csw/dataset/geographic-variations-in-underwater-male-weddell-seal-trills-suggest-breeding-area-fidelity1