Abstract
Some odontocetes and bats vary both click intensity and receiver sensitivity during echolocation, depending on target range. It is not known how this so-called automatic gain control is regulated by the animal. The source level of consecutive echolocation clicks from a harbour porpoise was measured with a hydrophone array while the animal detected an aluminium cylinder at 2, 4 or 8m distance in a go/no-go paradigm. On-axis clicks had source levels of 145-174dB re 1μPa peak-to-peak. During target-present trials the click trains reached comparable source levels independent of the range to the target after three clicks. After an additional click, the source level was reduced for the 2 and 4m trials until it equalled the one-way transmission loss. During target-absent trials, the source level remained high throughout the entire click train. Given typical values of harbour porpoise inter-click intervals, the source level reduction commenced within a few 100ms from the first click in the click train. This may indicate a sub-cortically regulated source level regulation in the harbour porpoise.
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