A soundscape of fear: Testing the risk disturbance hypothesis on a small, toothed whale
Name of applicant
Pernille Meyer Sørensen
Title
Postdoctoral Fellow
Institution
University of Bristol
Amount
DKK 2,048,730
Year
2024
Type of grant
Reintegration Fellowships
What?
Human-made noise is a global problem for animals both on land and in the marine environment, with the potential to disrupt feeding, hinder communication and displace individuals, ultimately impacting survival. Yet, our understanding of which species are most sensitive to noise and why is limited. It has been proposed that species with a strong antipredator response are more vulnerable to noise.
Why?
The small harbour porpoise lives a largely solitary life and shows strong aversive responses to noise. They have also adapted to only producing sounds inaudible to killer whales to avoid predation. By experimentally testing whether antipredator responses shape species’ response to noise, this project will critically add to our fundamental understanding of the impact of human-made noise.
How?
I will design and combine playback experiments with drone-mounted video to test whether harbour porpoises’ strong aversive response to human-made noise, is due to a hypersensitive antipredator response to killer whales. I will do that by playing back killer whale vocalisations, noise, and control sounds to wild harbour porpoises and examine their behavioural response.