Michel Andrés
Michel André, director of the Laboratory of Bioacoustic Applications at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC)
The article is of good quality; the methodology and results are consistent, and the conclusions are prudent.
Noise in the sea now affects all links in the food chain, from plants to cetaceans, including phytoplankton and invertebrates. Increased noise levels in some areas where human activities are concentrated require adaptation from the species present. That some cetacean acoustic productions increase in intensity to temporarily mask ambient noise is neither new nor unusual, as has been demonstrated in some species. The data suggest that this phenomenon would also affect pilot whales in the Strait of Gibraltar.
The authors acknowledge that they have not been able to determine the level of signal loss or whether this possible masking of their vocalizations reduces the distance between individuals. All the data suggests that their prey could be more affected by this permanent exposure to artificial noise than the cetaceans themselves, but the authors make no mention of this, when the presence of this species in the Strait of Gibraltar is due to the availability of cephalopods.