My
research goal is to understand whale foraging ecology and bioacoustics in the
context of the evolutionary forces that have shaped their behavior, with
special consideration of the impacts of human activities on the system. I work at the intersection of sensory
physiology, ocean acoustics, ecology and conservation biology. Some current projects include:
- Development
of mathematical models and statistical approaches for the analysis of
whale behavior data and other bioacoustic datasets
- Development of mitigation strategies to avoid potentially harmful effects of human-generated sounds on marine mammals
- Application of acoustic modeling to marine mammal bioacoustics
- modeling propagation of airgun sounds in sperm whale habitat in the Gulf of Mexico
- modeling propagation of animal sounds (e.g., sperm whale codas and harbor porpoise echolocation clicks)
- Characterization of toothed whale social sounds, including the social and environmental contexts in which they are produced
- Noninvasive determination of whale diet using prey DNA extracted from fecal material
- Field and captive studies of harbor porpoise acoustics and foraging ecology
- Development of an archival acoustic tag for harbor porpoises
Coming soon: An expansion of my research program to include terrestrial acoustics, with a focus on small mammals.
- Bioacoustics of the solenodon and the hutia, two small terrestrial mammals endemic to the island of Hispaniola
- Bioacoustics of small mammals of Michigan
|
|
