Aerial low frequency hearing in captive and free-ranging harbour seals (Phoca vitulina) using auditory brainstem responses
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Date
12/2016Author
Funder
Grant ID
Agreement R8-H12-86
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Show full item recordAbstract
The hearing sensitivity of 18 free-ranging and 10 captive harbour seals (Phoca vitulina) to aerial sounds was measured in the presence of typical environmental noise through auditory brainstem response measurements. A focus was put on the comparative hearing sensitivity at low frequencies. Low- and mid-frequency thresholds appeared to be elevated in both captive and free-ranging seals but this is likely due to masking effects and limitations of the methodology used. The data also showed individual variability in hearing sensitivity with probable age-related hearing loss found in two old harbour seals. These results suggest that the acoustic sensitivity of free-ranging animals was not negatively affected by the soundscape they experienced in the wild.
Citation
Lucke , K , Hastie , G D , Ternes , K , McConnell , B J , Moss , S , Russell , D J , Weber , H & Janik , V M 2016 , ' Aerial low frequency hearing in captive and free-ranging harbour seals ( Phoca vitulina ) using auditory brainstem responses ' , Journal of Comparative Physiology A: Neuroethology, Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology , vol. 202 , no. 12 , pp. 859-868 . https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-016-1126-8
Publication
Journal of Comparative Physiology A: Neuroethology, Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0340-7594Type
Journal article
Rights
© The Author(s) 2016. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Description
The study was funded by a grant from the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) as part of their Offshore Energy Strategic Environmental Assessment programme.Collections
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