I decided to take the CURE course after taking intro to marine biology with Dr. May-Collado last spring. As a statistics major in CEMS, I am very used to analyzing data and trying to find patterns. However, one thing that is lacking in the statistics department is research opportunities. The CURE course provided a realistic experience of what doing research is like from start to finish. In many of my stats classes we analyze datasets, but I have learned that the majority of the work can just be collecting raw data and then getting it into a format that can be analyzed statistically.
On top of that, I have learned that sound data can be difficult to understand right away. You can’t just easily get a list of numbers; you need to learn software that can help extract the data from a spectrogram that can take hours to listen to and look at. As a statistician, it was extremely valuable to learn new software and to learn how to analyze a type of data that I have never worked with before.
I did my project on the effect of boat traffic on bottlenose dolphin whistles. We already know that dolphins alter the frequency of their whistles in the presence of boats. Whistle changes can depend on behavior and stress levels as well. However, dolphins have two major types of whistles- signature and variant. Signature whistles are unique to individual dolphins and are used for identification, especially to assist mothers and calves in reuniting after being separated by boats. The other whistles are variant whistles, which are not unique and can be used for general communication. Due to the different uses of the whistle types, we wanted to see if boats would affect signature and variant whistles differently. I compared signature and variant whistles in an area with high dolphin watching boat traffic (and high rate of mother/calf separations) and an area with transport boat traffic. We found no major differences in signature or variant whistle in each location overall, but more analysis should be done to look at when boats are present vs. when they are not present. Our more interesting findings were that whistles were longer, more complex, and higher in frequency in the location with more dolphin watching boat traffic.
Overall, this was an amazing course that provided experience in every step of the research process, from coming up with a research question all the way through writing a paper and formatting it for publication. The data I extracted for my project is also being incorporated into another students’ paper that is being submitted to JASA this winter, so I am very excited about that!
On top of that, I have learned that sound data can be difficult to understand right away. You can’t just easily get a list of numbers; you need to learn software that can help extract the data from a spectrogram that can take hours to listen to and look at. As a statistician, it was extremely valuable to learn new software and to learn how to analyze a type of data that I have never worked with before.
I did my project on the effect of boat traffic on bottlenose dolphin whistles. We already know that dolphins alter the frequency of their whistles in the presence of boats. Whistle changes can depend on behavior and stress levels as well. However, dolphins have two major types of whistles- signature and variant. Signature whistles are unique to individual dolphins and are used for identification, especially to assist mothers and calves in reuniting after being separated by boats. The other whistles are variant whistles, which are not unique and can be used for general communication. Due to the different uses of the whistle types, we wanted to see if boats would affect signature and variant whistles differently. I compared signature and variant whistles in an area with high dolphin watching boat traffic (and high rate of mother/calf separations) and an area with transport boat traffic. We found no major differences in signature or variant whistle in each location overall, but more analysis should be done to look at when boats are present vs. when they are not present. Our more interesting findings were that whistles were longer, more complex, and higher in frequency in the location with more dolphin watching boat traffic.
Overall, this was an amazing course that provided experience in every step of the research process, from coming up with a research question all the way through writing a paper and formatting it for publication. The data I extracted for my project is also being incorporated into another students’ paper that is being submitted to JASA this winter, so I am very excited about that!
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