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Susan E. Parks publications indexed by Google Scholar
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Susan Parks is an ecologist at Syracuse University known for her research on acoustic signaling and the impact of ambient noise on communication in marine mammals.
Parks obtained a B.A. in Biology from Cornell University (1998) and a Ph.D. in Biological Oceanography from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (2003). [1] Following her time in Woods Hole, Parks was a postdoctoral investigator at Cornell University before joining the faculty at Pennsylvania State University. Parks is currently an associate professor of Biology at Syracuse University. [2]
At a young age, Parks' father introduced her to recordings of whale sounds and, in a 2010 interview, Parks describes the connection between this moment and an undergraduate animal behavior class that led her to a research project with frogs and ultimately her Ph.D. research on right whales. [3] During her Ph.D., Parks used an historical archive of whale sounds and determined that right whale calls increased in volume when ambient noise levels increased. [4] [5] Parks has also used tags temporarily placed on right whales to study their ecology [6] and research by Holly Root-Gutteridge, a postdoctoral investigator working with Parks, has revealed that right whale songs change over a whale's lifespan. [7] By tracking the 'gunshot' sound made by right whales, Parks and colleagues determined that right whales use Roseway Basin, a region of the Scotian Shelf, from August to November as an area for breeding. [8] [9]
Through the use of sound, Parks has also examined the connection between higher temperatures and sound in katydids, [10] traffic noise and frogs, [11] [12] and seals that may not be loud enough to overcome noise levels from human activities. [13] Parks, Jennifer Miksis-Olds, and Samuel Denes have used sound to define the bounds of biological habitats. [14] Whales vary the noises they make and Parks' research has described the soft sounds used by mother and calf pairs as 'whispers' which may avoid the unwanted attention of predators. [15] [16] The clock-like sounds in humpback whales could be a signal to nearby whales about the presence of food or a means to get the whales' prey to come out of the sand. [17] [18] After the 9/11 attacks, an unplanned collaboration between Parks, Rosalind Rolland, and a team of researchers [19] [20] concluded that a short-term reduction in ship noise altered hormone levels in whales. [21] [22]
In addition to her research, Parks mentors women in science and in 2016 Parks said she "...wanted to be a senior scientist in the field to provide young women an example of a female role model." [23]
Susan E. Parks publications indexed by Google Scholar
| Authority control databases: Academics |
|---|
