Biography
Volker Deecke is a post-doctoral fellow at the Marine Mammal Research Unit interested in acoustic aspects of predator-prey interactions between killer whales and Steller sea lions. He is investigating the use of acoustic monitoring devices to determine how often killer whales visit sea lion rookeries and haulouts. He is also interested in how mammal-eating killer whales have modified their vocal behaviour to avoid detection by their acoustically sensitive prey.

Volker Deecke has been studying killer whale vocal communication for over 10 years. His masters research at the University of British Columbia involved measuring the rate of change of killer whale calls using artificial neural networks in order to determine the role of learning and copying in dialect development of fish-eating killer whales. For his Ph.D. at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, he studied the vocal behaviour of transient killer whales in British Columbia and Alaska, as well as the ability of harbour seals to distinguish between the calls of dangerous mammal-eating and harmless fish-eating killer whales.

 

Also affiliated with:
Research Associate
Cetacean Research Lab
Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre
P.O. Box 3232 Vancouver, BC V6B 3X8
Tel: 604.659.3429
Fax: 604.659.3599

 

   Publications

Deecke, V. B., Slater, P. J. B. & Ford, J. K. B. 2002. Selective habituation shapes acoustic predator
recognition in harbour seals. Nature, 420, 171-173.

Deecke, V. B. & Janik, V. M. 2006. Automated categorization of bioacoustic signals: Avoiding perceptual pitfalls. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 119, 645-653.

Trites, A. W., V. B. Deecke, E. J. Gregr, J. K. B. Ford, and P. F. Olesiuk. 2007. Killer whales, whaling and sequential megafaunal collapse in the North Pacific: a comparative analysis of the dynamics of marine mammals in Alaska and British Columbia following commercial whaling. Marine Mammal Science 23:751-765. (PDF)

Deecke, V.B. 2006. Studying marine mammal cognition in the wild - a review of four decades of playback experiments. Aquatic Mammals 32(4):461-482. (PDF)

Trites, A.W., B.P. Porter, V.B. Deecke, A.P. Coombs, M.L. Marcotte and D.A.S. Rosen. 2006. Insights into the Timing of Weaning and the Attendance Patterns of Lactating Steller Sea Lions (Eumetopias jubatus) in Alaska During Winter, Spring and Summer. Aquatic Mammals 32:85-97. (PDF)

Deecke, V.B., Ford, J.K.B., Slater, P.J.B. 2005. The vocal behaviour of mammal-eating killer whales (Orcinus orca): Communicating with costly calls. Animal Behaviour 69:395-405. (PDF)

Deecke, Volker B., John K.B. Ford and Paul Spong. 2000. Dialect change in resident killer whales (Orcinus orca): Implications for vocal learning and cultural transmission. Animal Behaviour 60:629-638. (PDF)

Deecke, Volker B., John K.B. Ford and Paul Spong. 1999. Quantifying complex patterns of bioacoustic variation: Use of a neural network to compare killer whale (Orcinus orca) dialects. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 105:2499-2507. (PDF)

Deecke, Volker B. 1998. Stability and Change of Killer Whale Orcinus orca) Dialects. In Department of Zoology. University of British Columbia, Vancouver. 114 pages (PDF)