Geographic variations in the whistles among three Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin <Emphasis Type="Italic">Tursiops aduncus</Emphasis> populations in Japan

ABSTRACT:   Whistles of Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins from three populations in Japan were collected and analyzed quantitatively. Geographic variations in the whistles among populations were found. Significant differences in the whistles among years within each population were also found, but those differences could not explain whole differences among populations because some parameters of the whistles had more differences among populations than among years within each population. As changes with time in the whistles within each population might cause the geographic variations among populations, researchers should take the yearly change within populations into consideration when they study the geographic variation in the whistle of dolphins.