Acoustic signature of plastic marine debris mimics the prey items of deep-diving cetaceans

Hi I'm Nick! I'm currently a Marine Science and Conservation PhD student in the Duke Nicholas School of the Environment. I'm advised by Dr Douglas Nowacek of the Bioacoustics and Engineering Lab at Duke University Marine Lab in Beaufort, North Carolina. I was previously an undergraduate at Duke University (Class of 2023) where I majored in biology and minored in environmental science.

I'm interested in marine mammal bio-acoustics and conservation, of which I've worked on a variety of species including: North Atlantic right whales, goose-beaked whales, Florida manatees, short-finned pilot whales, bottlenose dolphins, and false killer whales. More broadly, I'm interested in bioacoustics, ecology, and animal behavior.

I'm a former Rachel Carson Scholar at Duke university and worked collaboratively with the Duke Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab, Bioacoustics and Engineering Lab, and Mote Marine Laboratory on an undergraduate thesis "Behavioral impacts of extended viewership on Florida manatees (T. m. latirostris) by ecotourist watercraft".

Asides from my obsession with marine mammals, I love the outdoors and you'll probably catch me outside taking pictures of birds or other small critters. I am an avid sports fan and keep up with basketball, football, and soccer.

Feel free to reach out to me and check out some of my work through linkedin or any of the links below!

Duke Email: nicholas.kaney@duke.edu
Personal: nickkaney@gmail.com

Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/nickkaney.bsky.social
Twitter/X: https://x.com/NickKaney

Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nick-Kaney
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=KZ1ZVw4AAAAJ&hl=en
Web of Science: https://www.webofscience.com/wos/author/record/LUY-7353-2024?state={}
ORCID: https://orcid.org/my-orcid?orcid=0009-0006-0533-1249

Sound propagates very efficiently through sea water, and marine mammals take advantage of this medium to communicate and explore their environment. My research is focused on the link between acoustic and motor behavior in marine mammals, primarily cetaceans and manatees, specifically, how they use sound in ecological processes. The cetaceans, or whales and dolphins, are divided into two main groups, the toothed whales (odontocetes) and the baleen whales (mysticetes). One of my specific areas of research is the use of echolocation and foraging behavior in one of the odontocetes, the bottlenose dolphin. Another focus of my current research is the effect(s) of anthropogenic noise on marine mammals.