![]() These unanswered questions are part of the larger field of bioacoustics, which blends biology and acoustics to deepen our understanding of the noises that surround us in nature. “It’s an interplay between both.” Blumstein, a marmot communication researcher, added that the mechanisms behind these vocal variations deserve more study. “It’s not as though a song or vocal learning is ‘all environmental’ or ‘all genetic,’” he said. It’s an interplay between both.”Ĭlarke’s research adds a small piece to the larger puzzle of animal communication, said Daniel Blumstein, a biologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not involved in the study. “It’s not as though a song or vocal learning is ‘all environmental’ or ‘all genetic’. Clarke hopes to find out whether genetic variation - which is more limited in Pennsylvania’s herd - might explain differences in bugles, and whether those differences are learned by young males listening to older bulls. She initially hypothesized that calls would differ based on the way sound travels in Pennsylvania’s dense forests compared to Colorado and Wyoming’s more open landscapes, but her data didn’t support that theory. Meanwhile, bugles change frequency from low to high tones more sharply in Wyoming than they do in Pennsylvania or Colorado.Ĭlarke isn’t sure why the dialects vary. Pennsylvania’s elk herds were translocated from the West in the early 1900s, and today they have longer tonal whistles and quieter bugles than elk in Colorado. “You can recognize Bill’s handwriting from George’s handwriting.” But by using spectrograms, a visual representation of sound frequencies, researchers can see the details of each region’s signature bugles. While most people can detect human dialects - a honey-thick Southern drawl versus a nasal New England accent-differences in regional elk bugles are almost imperceptible to human ears. Her research, published earlier this year in the Journal of Mammalogy, dug into the unique symphony created by different elk herds. That surprised her: “Thousands of people go to national parks to hear them bugle, and we don’t know what we’re listening to.” “My graduate students and I started delving into the library and could find nothing on elk communication, period,” she said. Hearing elk bugle in Rocky Mountain National Park decades ago inspired Clarke to investigate the sound. Other studies have shown that whale, bat and bird calls have regional dialects, too, but a team led by Jennifer Clarke, a behavioral ecologist at the Center for Wildlife Studies and a professor at the University of La Verne in California, is the first to identify such differences in any species of ungulate. Now, new research finds that male elk’s bugles sound slightly different depending on where they live. ![]() A minute later, another bull answers from somewhere in the shadows.īugles are the telltale sound of elk during mating season. The sound ricochets across the grassy meadow. ![]() A mournful, groaning call cuts through the dusky blue light: a male elk, bugling. It’s a crisp fall evening in Grand Teton National Park. This article was originally featured on High Country News. New research finds that male elk’s bugles sound slightly different depending on where they live.
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