Renata Santoro Sousa-Lima

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Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte | IIP · Department of Physiology & Behavior

Until recently, freshwater turtles were thought to be silent reptiles, neither vocalizing nor hearing very well. We recorded individuals in nature, captivity, and during interactions between adults and hatchlings and show that hatchlings and adult turtles, Podocnemis expansa, produce sounds in and out of the water. Sounds were emitted by hatchlings...

Five decades after the first description of the humpback whale song in the Northern Hemisphere, and two decades after the first description of a cultural revolution in the eastern Australian population, this Note provides evidence of an abrupt change (leastways) of the song occurred in 2018 season, in breeding stock A. This intense song change meas...

The need for remote, reliable, and scalable monitoring of plummeting biodiversity amidst mounting human pressures on ecosystems and changing climate has sparked enormous interest in Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM) over multiple disciplines and ecosystems. Even though PAM could support UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Global Biodiversity I...

Sousa-Lima, R., Cheeseman, T., Jackson, J., Friedlaender, A., Pallin, L., Olio, M., Liberali-Wedekin, L., Daura-Jorge, F., Cardoso, J., Santos, J., Fortes, R., Araújo, M., Bassoi, M., Beaver, V., Bombosch, A., Clark, C., Denkinger, J., Boyle, A., Rasmussen, K., Savenko, O., Avila, I.C., Palacios, D., Kennedy, A.,, & M. Marcondes. 2022. The Southern...

Under the current global biodiversity crisis, there is a need for automated and non-invasive monitoring techniques that are able to gather large amounts of information cost-effectively at large scales. One such technique is passive acoustic monitoring, which is commonly coupled with automatic identification of animal species based on their sound. A...

Ocean warming, acidification, and deoxygenation are expected to intensify without significant climate mitigation. In tropical regions, rising ocean temperatures may push marine species to their thermal limits, leading to redistributions and cascading effects on communities and ecosystems. We evaluate how the future climate change scenarios could im...

After the worldwide moratorium on whaling, humpback whale populations began to recover, reoccupying former areas of use, as also observed on the Brazilian coast. Abrolhos Bank represents the area of greatest humpback whale concentration but the number of individuals to the north has increased, as has happened in the region of Serra Grande. To compa...

Sei whale (Balaenoptera borealis Lesson 1828) is one of the least known whale species in the world although it is cosmopolitan and it is mostly found in temperate waters. It is the third largest species of the Balaenoptera genus and in the Southern Hemisphere. Sei whales produce songs and several call types. Sei call types include down sweeps with...

Camera traps became the main observational method of a myriad of species over large areas. Data sets from camera traps can be used to describe the patterns and monitor the occupancy, abundance, and richness of wildlife, essential information for conservation in times of rapid climate and land‐cover changes. Habitat loss and poaching are responsible...

The West Indian manatee is one of the most threatened speciesin Brazil. The species has currently a patchy distribution from thestate of Alagoas to the state of Amapá. The difficulty of observingmanatees, especially in estuarine waters, is a challenge forconservation. Therefore, it is necessary to use new methodologiesand technologies to solve mana...

Introduction: Humpback whales belonging to the Central American (CA) Distinct Population Segment breed off the Pacific coast of Nicaragua. Knowledge on this endangered population and its conservation status is limited. Objective: The aim of this study is to provide the first description of the CA humpback whale song off Nicaragua, which helps furth...

Latrines are important sites for intraspecific olfactory communication in mammals, especially for solitary or widely distributed species. Communal latrines give visitors access to information about other visitors, notably conspecific chemical cues, even in their absence. Chemical communication has evolved to allow information transfer among individ...

All habitats have noise, but anthropogenic sounds often differ from natural sounds in terms of frequency, duration and intensity, and therefore may disrupt animal vocal communication. This study aimed to investigate whether vocalizations emitted by black-tufted marmosets (Callithrix penicillata) were affected by the noise produced by mining activit...

Vocal activity and signal characteristics of mammals are driven by several factors that result in both stability and plasticity over multiple time scales. All three extant species of manatee communicate with several calls that are especially important for maintaining contact between cows and calves. Determining if calf calls differ across manatee s...

Sei whale (Balaenoptera borealis Lesson 1828) is one of the least known whale species in the world although it is cosmopolitan and it is mostly found in temperate waters. It is the third largest species of the Balaenoptera genus and in the Southern Hemisphere. Sei whales produce songs and several call types. Sei call types include down sweeps with...

The Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean (ASSO) has one of the highest densities of Antarctic krill ( Euphausia superba ) compared to other polar and subpolar regions, which attracts migratory baleen whale species to aggregate in this area for feeding. Humpback whales ( Megaptera novaeangliae ) also sing extensively while on the Southern Ocean fee...

Unusual records of marine organisms beyond their known distribution range aid the identification of dispersal capabilities, health issues, changing oceanographic patterns and/or anomalies, and may drive attention to underlying shifts in the polar marine environment. Here we report on an adult male sub-Antarctic fur seal, Arctocephalus tropicalis, s...

Maned wolves (Chrysocyon brachyurus) are monogamous and display biparental care for their young, although adults rarely spend time in close proximity. To better understand vocal interactions of maned wolves over long-distances, we passively recorded >10 months of audio data in the species’ natural habitat and analyzed manual recordings of captive a...

The acoustic adaptation hypothesis (AAH) states that the acoustic signal of a species must propagate better in its native habitat. Studies have shown that certain anuran species modify acoustic parameters according to the environment where they are calling. However, these studies did not verify if these modifications improved the call's transmissio...

Acoustic communication is a way of information exchange between individuals, and it is used by several animal species. Therefore, the detection, recognition and correct understanding of acoustic signals are key factors in effective communication. The priority of acoustic communication is effectiveness rather than perfection, being effective avoids...

Soundscape studies help us understand ecological processes, biodiversity distribution, anthropic influences, and even urban quality, across a wide variety of places and time periods. In this work, instead of looking for differences, we ask if there are common characteristics shared by all soundscapes. Based on our results, we propose a universal di...

Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) are a cosmopolitan species and perform long annual migrations between low-latitude breeding areas and high-latitude feeding areas. Their breeding populations appear to be spatially and genetically segregated due to long-term, maternally inherited fidelity to natal breeding areas. In the Southern Hemisphere,...

The responses of marine organisms to changes in their environments can be studied using a variety of methods. Captive studies are highly controlled approaches that measure one or more parameters of interest in an enclosed area. Sample sizes are usually small, but experimental design and measurement methods are more controllable than in natural envi...

Advances in technologies for data acquisition, storage and analysis have boosted Acoustic Ecology studies, but protocols are still lacking. There is a need of more research to understand which methodologies can be applied to answer ecological questions in different environments with varying temporal and spatial dynamics. Tropical forests are genera...

Neste capítulo primeiramente apresentaremos todos os mamíferos aquáticos existentes para que o leitor tenha conhecimento da diversidade e das características tão distintas deste grupo faunístico. Após esta abordagem geral sobre cada grupo de mamíferos aquáticos, trataremos das espécies presentes na região Nordeste (NE) do Brasil, tanto nos ambiente...

Wildfire is a natural process in Brazilian savannas, but human activities alter fire regimes and threaten biodiversity. In this study, weused an ecoacoustics approach to assess fauna responses and recovery after wildfire in a Brazilian savanna. Six passive acoustic monitoring devices were used to record soundscapes before and after a wildfire a at...

The current known distribution of Omura’s whale includes the tropical and warm temperate waters of the western Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans. Evidence of their presence in the Atlantic Ocean is based on beach cast specimens found on the coasts of Mauritania (North Atlantic) and Northeastern Brazil (South Atlantic). The present study characte...

Humpback whale song is comprised of well-structured distinct levels of organization: combinations of sounds, repetition of combinations, and a sequence of repetitions, which have no clear silent intervals. This continuous sound output can be hard to delimit, rather, it could be interpreted as a long series of states of a system. Recurrence plots ar...

Passive acoustic monitoring can aid conservation efforts and elucidate the behavior and ecologyof nocturnal/crepuscular secretive species, like the maned wolf. Here we characterize the seasonal, lunar, andnightly patterns in the long-range vocalizations (roar-barks) of free ranging maned wolves at Serra da CanastraNational Park (Brazil) throughout...

The acoustic adaptation hypothesis (AAH) predicts that acoustic signals are selected to propagate more efficiently in the habitat where they are normally transmitted. Several studies corroborated the AAH for primates and birds, but evidence for frogs is contentious: While most studies failed to support the AAH, recent studies have shown that wi...

The humpback whales from the breeding stock A are recovering and currently, the whales are observed throughout northeastern Brazil. Since 2014, monitoring studies of humpbacks have begun in Serra Grande, a region where the continental shelf is narrower in the Brazilian coast, allowing the whales to approach near the coast. Land-based visual monitor...

South America hosts two stocks of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae), stock A occupying southwest waters of the Atlantic, and stock G, located in the Southeast Pacific. After breeding in these locations in the austral winter and spring, both stocks travel in the austral summer to the feeding areas located in the Magellan Strait, Corcovado Gul...

Recent studies have shown that acoustic signals play an important role in turtle social behavior and reproduction. We recorded embryos and hatchlings of Lepidochelys kempii inside the nest and underwater in June 2016 in Playa Santander, Veracruz, Mexico, and detected 189 sounds that were classified into 6 types according to their aural and spectral...

Maned wolves are difficult to observe in the wild because of their low densities and their cryptic and crepuscular-nocturnal habits. Exploring their long-range acoustic communication may offer an efficient alternative to study the species. Here we evaluated the applicability of playbacks to study maned wolves in the wild and compare the results wit...

Recordings were made in nests of Eretmochelys imbricata and 107 samples of 10-min recordings revealed 575 sounds that were classified manually into 4 categories. Our results show that hawksbill turtles vocalize within the nest, especially during and after eclosion, which suggests vocalizations are important for communication among hatchlings to syn...

Communal latrines have important biological and ecological roles for the latrine builder species and for other taxa that visit these sites and use feces to obtain nutrients and microorganisms that aid in digestion of compounds hard to process. Nonetheless, coprophagous animals must deal with the costs associated with parasites and other pathogens p...

Descrita em 2003 a partir de oito exemplares caçados em baixas latitudes do Indo-Pacífico, a baleia-de-Omura (Balaenoptera omurai) apresenta hoje uma distribuição esperada em todos os oceanos. De modo geral são poucos registros confirmados e há apenas dois encalhes publicados no Atlântico. O presente estudo utiliza gravações realizadas pelo Projeto...

Anthropogenic noise is a global pollutant and several studies have identified its impact on wildlife. This research shows how the noise produced by mining affects crickets' acoustic communication. Two passive acoustic monitoring devices (SMII) were installed in a forest fragment located at 500 m from the Brucutu Mine in Brazil. Another two SMII wer...

Humpback whale is known for the complex songs performed by the males to attract females, during the migration and mating season. The south western of Indian ocean is a breeding area from July to September for tis species. This is the first interregional acoustic study of this area which aim to better understand the cultural song transmission of hum...

In this work we study the statistic of the nocturnal and diurnal urban soundscape. Our focus is on the temporal distribution of the quiet-times (background noise) and sound-times (noise bursts) in audio recordings. We analyzed one hour samples uninterruptedly of urban environment soundscape for ten days and nights. The histogram for the nocturnal q...

A previous comparison of whistles using data sampled at 48 kHz suggested that certain frequency parameters vary along a latitudinal gradient. This geographical pattern may be biased because whistles sampled at higher frequencies could potentially have very different frequency contents. The current study compared the acoustic parameters of Guiana do...

Humpback whales migrate to the Brazilian coast during the austral winter to reproduce and calve. Males sing long complex songs with repetitive patterns, and each population has its own song version that changes over time. The objectives of this study were: 1) to define the song structure in 2014 and 2015 in the Brazilian breeding area; 2) to analyz...

Acoustic communication plays an important role for whales due to the propagation efficiency of sounds over long distances in the marine environment. While humpback whales’ song is emitted only by males mainly during the breeding season, social sounds (calls or sounds produced on the surface of water through aerial behaviors) are produced by both ma...

The population of humpback whales from breeding stock A is increasing, and little is known about the routes used by humpbacks that move north of the main calving area of Brazil, the Abrolhos Bank. The aim of this study was to describe the movements of humpback whales in a reoccupation wintering area (Serra Grande, Bahia state, Brazil) based on land...

Whales are difficult to study. These large marine mammals cannot be maintained in captivity so they have to be studied in nature, and observing their underwater behavior becomes a challenge. The extensive distribution, large size, and aquatic life style of these leviathans constrain efforts to observe and understand the scale of what is being studi...

humpback whales' songs are decomposed in a serie of stereotyped units. Then recurrence plots (based on Levenshtein distances at unit level) are computed. It provides a visual tool to analyze globally the humpback whales' songs.

The coast of Brazil is an important low latitude nursery ground for humpback whales ( Megaptera novaeangliae ). The number of humpback whales in this region has increased and its population is reoccupying areas where it has been depleted during the whaling period. The goal of this study was to conduct land-based observations during 2014 and 2015 to...

The application of acoustic indices is incipient and still needs validation before it can reliably characterize soundscapes and monitor rapidly disappearing hot-spot areas as the Brazilian tropical savanna (Cerrado). Here we investigate which of six acoustic indices better correlate with the 24 h zoophony richness of insects, anurans, birds, and ma...

The evolution of sociality is related to many ecological factors that act on animals as selective forces, thus driving the formation of groups. Group size will depend on the payoffs of group living. The Social Complexity Hypothesis for Communication (SCHC) predicts that increases in group size will be related to increases in the complexity of the c...

Dataset of acoustic parameters of spotted paca’s vocalizations. (XLS)

Dataset of combination of roar and groan vocalizations. (XLSX)

Dataset of formants in roar vocalizations. (XLSX)

Dataset of acoustic types of spotted paca. (RAR)

Master Thesis Lima SGC. (PDF)

All habitats have some level of noise but anthropogenic sounds such as those produced by traffic are structurally different from natural sounds, and could cause organisms living in noisy urban areas to modify their vocal communication. We compared temporal and spectral parameters of contact calls in black tufted-ear marmosets (Callithrix penicillat...