Environmental and Ocean Sciences Research Associate Ann Bowles Releases New Book on Marine Mammal Acoustics

A new open access book, Marine Mammal Acoustics in a Noisy Ocean, co-edited by Ann Bowles, PhD, has just been released by Springer Nature. This volume synthesizes what we now know about the fundamentals of ocean acoustics as they relate to marine mammals, underwater noise sources, and the vocal behavior of mysticetes, odontocetes, pinnipeds, otters and sirenians. The chapters also focus on marine mammal hearing, and analyze what is known about the effects of behavioral and physiological responses to noise. In the last 30 years, literature in this area has exploded and the final publication required 756 pages, four editors and 47 authors to bring it all together. 

Dr. Bowles is both an editor of the volume and an author on a number of chapters. She is a Senior Research Scientist at Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute, as well as a Research Associate at USD and serves on graduate student committees as a research mentor. Her USD graduate students have been important contributors to her work over decades, and their graduate research is not only cited in the volume, but these students have also gone on to make contributions to marine mammal bioacoustics since they graduated.

Noteworthy USD graduate alumni in this volume include:

• Rindy Anderson '00 (MS) whose work focuses on marine mammal responses to human-made gear and pingers
• Larry Wolski '99 (MS) studies harbor seal hearing
• Jessica Crance's '08 (MS) research looks at killer whale cross-dialect learning and is considered one of the world’s experts on North Pacific right whale bioacoustics
• Whitney Musser's '14 (MS) research is centered on killer whale cross-species learning
• Sheyna Wisdom's '00 (MS) studies of vocal development in gray whales includes continued participation in gray whale bioacoustics research

Ann shared, “I got a big kick out of it every time papers by someone who worked in my lab got cited, especially since it often wasn’t me making the choice - that’s the best possible affirmation of the value and quality of their work!” Dr. Bowles hopes this volume will stimulate more decades of advancement in our understanding of marine mammal bioacoustics and foster the contributions of USD’s next great cohort of graduate students.