Team: Isabelle Charrier (NeuroPSI, CNRS, Orsay, France), Tess Gridley (Sea Search Research and Conservation, Cape Town, South-Africa) and Simon Elwen (Sea Search Research and Conservation, Cape Town, South-Africa)
- Description of the Cape fur seal’s vocalizations (structure, acoustic features) and their social function
- Investigation of information encoded in CFS’ calls
- Regional comparison of their vocal repertoire among colonies in Namibia and South-Africa
- Relationships between the vocal communication network and their ecological constraints (massive colonies, structure in harems, mother-pup separations…)
- Investigation of individual recognition through playbacks experiments (mother-pup recognition and ontogeny, ‘dear enemy effect’ in territorial males)
- Impact of noise pollution of CFS’ behavior
- Assessment of stress hormones levels in entangled individuals (impact of plastic pollution)
