How Effective Is A Bottlenose Dolphin's Echolocation?

I believe that underwater noise has an effect on marine animals such as whales. Using information from the passages I will prove my point. Their numbers are declining rapidly and I believe that underwater noise has some involvement in the rapid decrease in their population numbers. The information given within the two passages will help prove my point.

Cetaceans use sound extensively in both communication, hunting, and navigation. However as humanity continues to make use of the ocean we are constantly filling it with equipment that produces high amounts of sound. These devices are starting to have an impact on cetaceans worldwide, from mass strandings often linked to military exercises to area denials caused by busy commercial shipping lanes and seismic surveys. If consideration is not taken towards this problem now it could develop into something that could have degrading effects on cetacean populations in the future.

I am like a Bottlenose Dolphin. In nature, Bottlenose Dolphins are known for their advance thought processing, communication skills, sense of curiosity, and open minds. Like a Bottlenose Dolphin, I have all the same attributes that make me a distinct student and individual. To the advanced mind of a Bottlenose Dolphin, the ocean is its domain that it can mature in and mold in the way it pleases. For me, the entire earth is my domain to mature in and to mold. The unique way I want to shape the future of the world is by becoming a biomedical engineer and using what I have learned during my studies to change the world of biomedicine. I will use my dolphin like attributes to aid me in reaching my goal. Once I become a biomedical engineer I will surely have accomplished my goal in life and hopefully will be well on my way to changing others way of life..

The tonal shifts allow animals such as Orcinus orca, to distinguish between a sonar, (from an active boat), oceanic sounds, to other species.

The cownose ray (Rhinoptera bonasus) is found in open Atlantic Ocean waters from Western Africa to the Northeastern United States and parts of the Caribbean. Cownose rays are a migratory species on the Atlantic Ocean, that returns to the Chesapeake Bay each summer to mate. These animals prefer warm waters up to depths of 72 feet, where they can find bottom dwelling lobsters, crabs, and small fish for prey. The cownose ray possess adaptations to easily locate, kill, and eat its prey. One such adaptation is the electroreceptors found on the ray’s snout. These creatures cruise for prey over soft mud and sand bottoms, until they sense electrical stimuli from organisms through these electroreceptors. The ray will then stir up mud or sand by fluttering

One way they get their food is by working together. Another way is by trapping their prey onshore. However, they may trap themselves onshore in the process. Bottlenose Dolphins can also use echolocation (using sound to locate things) to get food. Instead of using echolocation, some dolphins use passive listening to get their food. The type of food available to a Bottlenose Dolphin depends on its location. Bottlenose Dolphins eat around 4 to 9 percent of their body weight each day. The predators of Bottlenose Dolphins are large species of sharks and killer

For the first seven months of their training period, the dolphins were acquainted with several gestures and sounds. They were presented with simple two-choice sound-discrimination stimuli to familiarize them with some sounds that the study would use. Correct responses were rewarded with freshly thawed silver smelt fish. The positive reinforcement aimed at developing a positive attitude toward learning and encouraging dolphins to solve problems. Gestural training was also initiated in this period to accustom the dolphins to responses that that would later be expected from them in the study. Akeakamai was made to specialize in gestural

Bottlenose dolphins are among the most familiar cetaceans, just as whales. The Bottlenose dolphin is a primitive member of the subfamily Delphinine. Bottlenose dolphins are grey, varying from dark grey at the top near the dorsal fin to very light grey and almost white at the underside. There are two ecotypes of bottlenose dolphins the coastal and the offshore. The Coastal dolphin has a small body and large flippers to increase agility and heat dissipation. They have a limited movement into offshore waters and like shallow warm water near the shore. Coastal dolphins for the most part remain in their region. The Offshore dolphin has a large body to help conserve heat and defend itself against predators. They are less restricted in range and movement and like deep, cold waters. Offshore dolphins in the North Atlantic have migratory patterns that follow prey distribution. Bottlenose dolphins live in groups typically of 10–30 members, called pods, but group size varies from single individuals up to more than 1,000. In a case study performed by Randall Wells who is the leader of the longest study of dolphin population since 1970, it was discovered that there are three main factors that influence migration: Seasonal changes in prey location, predation pressure and reproductive requirements. (Wells, 1980). In the fall dolphins follow mullet fish when they migrate from the bays into the Gulf of Mexico to spawn. Dolphins experience the most predation pressure during the summer when

Clicks are high-frequency and directional sounds that are used to detect, discriminate and recognize objects in the environment, including potential preys (Caldwell et al., 1990; Janik, 2013). These clicks are used to locate/discriminate an object based on the returning echo, and the system is known as echolocation or biosonar (Griffin, 1958). Bottlenose dolphins produce high-frequency broadband clicks with dominant frequencies generally higher than 50-60kHz (Au, 1993).

Recent Off-Shore drilling in the United States in the Atlantic Ocean has had a very negative effect on Bottlenose Dolphins. The noise caused from drilling has negatively affected their ability to communicate effectively. Recently off-shore drilling has increased to help create more jobs in America however, the Bottlenose Dolphins have been paying the price. Off-shore drilling creates lots of boat traffic around the drilling areas which interferes with the dolphins ability to communicate through echolocation. However the main interference with dolphins communication has been caused by seismic testing from these boats. Seismic testing is when loud blasts of compressed air are sent deep into the ocean to bounce off the seafloor to test to

Biologists and engineers eventually were able to follow fish using acoustic tags. These tags created sound waves that could be detected by underwater microphones attached to boats. The tags measured how the fish moved through it's environment.

I have read the introduction of this report. The title of is similar to other reports about bottlenose dolphins identifying members by signature whistles. However, one critical point mentioned in the introduction is that dolphins are the only other animals that transmit identity information independent of the caller’s voice or location. This gives the research a solid evidence because no other animals have this ability so close to the human society as dolphins, which supports the point that dolphins are one of the most highly intelligent animals on Earth besides humans. The experiment conducted in the report will give further examples for this

This includes a range of echolocation clicks in the dolphin sonar system used to identify objects underwater.

There are many different factors that can lead to the evolution of organisms over time. Evolution is one of the many ways that researchers have found to help in the understanding of selection. Convergent evolution, which involves different lineages evolving similar traits independently, is just one of the many ways. This type of evolution is seen in echolocation in mammals. Echolocation is a phenotypic trait that is known to have evolved independently in two groups of bats (Yangochiroptera and Rhinolophoidea) and in toothed whales such as dolphins. This process involves many different factors, with the most important being production/amplification, nerve transmission/reception, and signal recoding/processing of ultrasonic pulses. The species described above both use echolocation for things such as obstacle avoidance, orientation, and hunting/feeding. Hearing in mammals involves over 50 candidate genes. The hearing process has evolved into a variety of systems over time. In bats, laryngeal echolocation is shared by all members of the suborder Yangochiroptera, but only some members of the other suborder, the Yinpterochiroptera. In Yinpterochiroptera, the Old World fruit bats cannot echolocate, demonstrating that echolocation has either evolved separately in the Yangochiroptera and Yinpterochiroptera, or that it was lost in the Old World fruit bats.

Bottlenose dolphins find fish by using echolocation. This is when a dolphin sends out a beam of short sonar pulses from its melon, or forehead. The beam reflects off of fish or other objects and echoes back to the lower jaw. The echoes are then sent to the ear bones where they are characterized. Using echolocation, dolphins are able to locate prey that is buried up to one and a half feet under the sand (Cahill 140-141).