Characterizing the mechanisms of sound production in odontocetes: A signal modality approach

This work addresses the study of sounds produced by odontocetes using a brand-new approach based on signal modality. Characterizing the mechanisms used in sound generation, as well as classifying the repertory of sounds, is a complicated task given the complexity of the marine environment and the huge number of different marine mammal species. Several works in the last years have been raised to clarify how these sounds are generated. Understanding the behaviour of the organs responsible for the production and the mechanisms used in the generation is essential for the proposal of new classification features related to the underlying physics. This complex panorama may gain leverage from the advances in signal processing to the design of new algorithms based on the nature of the signals. Reconstructing the phase space, obtaining Recurrence Plots (RPs) and quantifying the complexity of the resulting structures are processed used with the aim of discerning and characterizing the different sounds produced by the odontocetes. Specifically between sounds with strong (almost-)periodic components, where traditional algorithms of signal processing are unable to get information related to the corresponding underlying model.