Adult Weddell seals (
Leptonychotes weddellii) exhibit site fidelity to where they first breed but juveniles, and perhaps transient adult males, may disperse from their
natal location. If there is mixing between adjacent breeding groups, we would expect that common vocalizations would exhibit
clinal patterns. Underwater Trill vocalizations of male Weddell seals at Mawson, Davis, Casey, McMurdo Sound, Neumayer and
Drescher Inlet separated by ca. 500 to >9,000 km, were examined for evidence of clinal variation. Trills are only emitted
by males and have a known territorial defense function. Trills from Davis and Mawson, ca. 630 km apart, were distinct from
each other and exhibited the greatest number of unique frequency contour patterns. The acoustic features (duration, waveform,
frequency contour) of Trills from Neumayer and Drescher Inlet, ca. 500 km apart, were more distinct from each other than they
were from the other four locations. General Discriminant Analysis and Classification Tree Analysis correctly classified 65.8
and 76.9% of the Trills to the correct location. The classification errors assigned more locations to sites >630 km away than
to nearest neighbours. Weddell seal Trills exhibit geographic variation but there is no evidence of a clinal pattern. This
suggests that males remain close to single breeding areas throughout their lifetime.
Keywords
Leptonychotes
weddellii
- Weddell seal - Reproduction - Site fidelity - Underwater vocalizations - Geographic variation