Abstract:
Software was developed to measure characteristics of marine animal sounds (AcouStat). These measurements proved effective
for classifying sounds in several contexts: identifying species, quantifying the repertoire of a single species, and identifying
individuals. The sound measures included statistics for aggregate bandwidth, intensity, duration, amplitude modulation, frequency
modulation, center frequency, and interactions among these variables. Classification analysis based on these measures suggests
they adequately characterize the variability of bioacoustic signals for many problems. Correct classification to species was as high
as 85%, and correct classification of dolphin whistles to individual was 90%.
