Rhythmic structure in humpback whale(Megaptera novaeangliae) songs: Preliminary implications for song production and perception

摘要

The hierarchical organization of the male humpback whale songhas been well documented. However, it is unknown how singers keep theseintricate songs intact over multiple repetitions or how they learn variationsthat occur sequentially during each mating season. Rather than focus on thesequence of sounds within a song, results presented here demonstrate that theindividual sounds are organized into rhythmic groups that make the produc-tion and perception of the lengthy songs tractable by yielding a set of simplegroups that, although arranged in rigid order, can be repeated multiple timesto generate the entire song.